In our last blog post, we already referred to an article that deals with sustainable logistics and its increasing importance, at least in the EU.
Terms such as “green”, “environmentally friendly”, “CO2-neutral” or “sustainable” have long since penetrated the world of marketing and advertising to such an extent that they are no longer new. Products that are “organic” are increasingly being sold over the counter and one may find the meaning of the eco and LOHAS (Lifestyle of Health And Sustainability) movement worthy of discussion.
Ultimately, however, it is the consumer who decides and, not least inspired by the debate on climate change or unspeakable production conditions (such as those at Foxconn at the beginning of the year), consumers increasingly want to buy sustainable products.
And this is not a German or European phenomenon: in the online version of the American Area Development Magazine, we found an article that clearly calls for the increasing social and ecological orientation of the supply chain and also points to the clear economic advantages of this. Sustainability is therefore also a topic of increasing relevance in the United States. It is particularly interesting to note that each supply chain is part of another – and ends with the consumer, who increasingly wants to know where their product was manufactured, under what conditions and by whom. Nothing works here without transparency and, above all, communication. Click here to read the article.
The question is how sustainable this trend towards sustainability is. In the context of rising raw material prices, there is perhaps even more potential here that goes beyond improving material efficiency, switching to renewable raw materials, shorter transportation routes or energy/water-saving production facilities.
But what do you think? Is this, to exaggerate, “global eco-wave in the industry” just a kind of fad that will die down again? Or will the topic really become so firmly anchored in society and the economy that it becomes a fundamental part of corporate strategy and business models in the long term?
