Towards a business model for sustainable supply chain management

Designers make decisions that ultimately impact on both the economic, environmental and social performance of the products and process, and many of these costs and impacts occur across the supply chain. This paper aims to show initials elements of a research which aims to develop an integrated business model for sustainable supply chain management in order to facilitate the business management process in terms of assessment of suppliers and collaboration addressed to the sustainable improvements across supply chain. It is noteworthy that it is an imperative in the current competitive market that companies must be able to manage their entire production chain taking into account sustainable issues as an important factor in their decision processes. Therefore, it is believed that this model can integrate and strengthen a company’s functions and assist its decision processes as well as implement improvements within its supply chain

Green Public Procurement for Imaging Equipment. Technical Background Report

The report proposes and substantiates the EU Green Public Procurement criteria for the product group of ‘Imaging Equipment". Green Public Procurement criteria allow public authorities to integrate environmental aspects in their purchasing decisions. The report contains the criteria proposal itself, the underlying scientific evidence regarding the environmental impacts of imaging equipment, and it describes the most important European legislation and labelling schemes relevant for this product group. Discussions with stakeholders from industry, NGOs and Member States have supported the development of the criteria. These contributions are also reflected in the analysis presented in this report.JRC.J.5-Sustainable Production and Consumptio

Revision of the EU Green Public Procurement Criteria for Street Lighting and Traffic Signals - Preliminary Report

Lighting is used on more than 1.6 million km of roads in EU28 countries, accounting for some 35 TWh of electricity consumption (1.3% of total electricity consumption) and costing public authorities almost €4000 million each year. A broad review of relevant technical, policy, academic and legislative literature has been conducted. This report examines the current market situation and the potential for reducing environmental impacts and electricity costs by assessing the recent developments in road lighting technology, particularly LEDs. Particularly important areas identified relate to energy efficiency, light pollution, product durability and, specifically for longer lasting and rapidly evolving new LED technologies, reparability and upgradeability. The information in this report shall serve as a basis for discussion with stakeholders about the further development and revision of EU GPP criteria for street lighting and traffic signals.JRC.B.5-Circular Economy and Industrial Leadershi

Navigating Supply Chain Multiverses: The colliding worlds of ESG and Product Compliance Reporting, implications for reporting across global supply chains

Companies that place products onto the marketplace, whether they are internally manufactured or sourced from a supply chain face ever increasing requirements to provision data, wherever the products are sourced and transported from, manufactured, and distributed at applicable local, regional, and global levels. The Product Compliance world considers product safety and regulatory compliance activities. The Environmental, Social, and corporate Governance (ESG) world considers a much broader range of sustainability and social development related activities, performed at a corporate level. ESG reporting was originally developed within the financial sector by investors to aggregate a given organization reporting against ESG related topics. The European Union (EU) has been implementing additional EU ESG reporting requirements, in the form of several directives and regulations flowing down from the EU Green Deal (EC, 2019), which aligns all it’s actions against the EU 2030 Climate Target Plan (EC, 2021a), this includes EU Capital Markets Action Plan (EC, 2020a), which includes direct intervention in the financial sector, requiring EU financial sector to adhere to the new EU ESG reporting requirements when providing financial services to industry. As a result, companies within the EU will need to adhere to these new EU ESG reporting requirements, which include reporting at economic activity and product level, to obtain investment from the EU financial sector, hence a significant additional burden of reporting will be placed against global supply chains in a significantly different manner to traditional ESG reporting, resulting in the collection of data and reporting linked to economic activities and at the product level, fusing the worlds of Product Compliance and ESG reporting. Existing systems and standards will need to be updated to reflect the granularity and accuracy of data to be reported. This paper contributes to existing literature by identifying a research gap in understanding the emerging ESG reporting requirements globally, and their resulting implications in terms of supply chain data collection and ESG reporting requirements. The outcomes of this paper support the development of organisational action plans to implement systems and solutions to enable adherence to the new requirements

Informing Sustainable Standards in 'The Circular Economy' utilising technological and data solutions

In our world of make, use and throw away we are now doing more damage to the planet than good, and this mindset has become unsustainable. One of the solutions to this problem is the ‘Circular Economy’ (CE). The CE replaces the concept of end-of-life production with restoration of natural systems, innovative design to design out waste and keeping products and materials in circulation for as long as possible. This research will use data science and statistical information to provide a solid foundation (framework) for standards developers to frame the development of standards for the CE. The research will extend the current CE model by interjecting innovative ideas into areas of the CE process: data analysis, restriction of harmful chemicals removing them from the supply chain, research into Local Value Creation (LVC) and research into Sustainable Development in the CE. The research will investigate how Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tagging of products and materials provide a realistic way to trace products and materials in a CE management system. It will also expand the knowledge on digitization in standards development by analyzing key data streams connected to the CE in order to inform the standards development community of the need to develop a standard on the CE. This research will use a mixed methodology by combining quantitative methods (data analysis) and qualitative data (case studies). This will be detailed in Chapter 3 – Methodology. The data collected from the literature review will drive four main Sections and four research questions in Chapter 4. This research will analyse through Case Studies and research papers the uptake of circular thinking in China and the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and use the outcomes positive or negative to show practical applications for this research.The objective conclusion of this research is to provide a framework for a European or International standard in order to fill the gap as no such Standard currently exists European or Internationally that addresses the CE. A Framework with inclusions from the research will form a usable output from the research. This research will inform or be of interest to the Standards development community, data scientists, Circular Economy practitioners and environmental regulators. The aim of this research is to provide a framework standard using underlying data and statistical information needed to develop a new Standard on the Circular Economy. Once a Standard is developed and published it can be used by any organisation or group of organisations, country or individual wishing to manage internally and collectively their activities in order to transition to the CE and the Sustainable Development goal of responsible consumption and production. This research has produced a framework from which sustainable standards can be developed. The data acquired from using RFID tags imbedded in products allows manufacturers to control and analyse the materials in their products specific to hazardous chemicals. This data can also be used to track the product through the supply chain and onto its product life cycle. The data gathered in the product example in this thesis tracks the potential use of hazardous chemicals in the product, this is important information for endof-life decisions to be made on the product. The data can then be used to develop requirements and testing regimes for circular economy standards. Having identified some of the main areas of future activity in the CE, this research i.e., the circular economy, data science and standards development will continue to evoke research in the CE for the foreseeable future

Halal certification for an industrial machine intended to come in contact with food

Halal Certification is a worldwide recognition that the products are permissible under Islamic law. These products are thus edible, drinkable or usable by Muslims. It can be extended to industrial machinery and tools. This Certification must be issued by a Notified Body under the supervision of an IMAM. Focus of the Certification are GMPs and Food Contact Materials and Articles. Four main phases to achieve Certification (the scheme is the same of ISO 14001, ISO 18001 and ISO 9001): Pre-Audit - The activity is to evaluate the documentation describing our internal system. Audit - The activity is to evaluate how the Organization works in coherence with the documentation. Issue of Certification - Released by an accredited Imam. System verifications - The Certification has to be revised and confirmed every year by the Notified Body and after three years a new complete audit has to be carried out