Reducing the carbon footprint
All of the businesses that Iguana work with are looking for efficiencies and improved performance. However, how do those efficiencies impact on another corporate objective which is becoming increasingly central to business thinking - reducing the carbon footprint? These two objectives are not mutually exclusive. When it comes to speeding up and energising a supply chain often reductions in the impact on the environment are a welcome by-product. Conversely, taking your environmental responsibilities seriously as a company can have a very positive impact on the bottom line. A senior Iguana Consultant, James Oliver, found himself in that position when supporting the centralising of the delivery of foodstuffs to ISS catering facilities in England and Scotland.
James' model showed that initial tranche of centralisation reduced the number of delivery drops by 87%, miles driven by 17% and amount of CO2 pumped into the atmosphere by 12%. And, that's only the beginning. Full centralisation forecasts a 29% reduction in CO2.
Q&A with Iguana Consultant, James Oliver
Q1 What were the main challenges in delivering on your objectives for this project?
A Given the commercial sensitivities surrounding the centralisation, it was not possible to get any data from suppliers regarding the specifics of how their current delivery routes to the 40 locations were made up and what the impact of no longer doing those deliveries directly would be. Therefore a set of assumptions to use in the model had to be devised and validated with the client and industry experts, gaining buy in and agreement took sometime to achieve.
Q2 What, in your view, are the main transferable lessons learned from this project?
A “Keep it Simple” work out early what the dynamics of the model are and don’t get side tracked into unnecessary complexity which adds nothing to the results
Q3 Why were the model results valuable to ISS?
A ISS knew that the centralisation they were implementing would have additional benefit beyond cost and efficiency, in terms of the environment, but they couldn’t quantify it. Iguana helped them to quantify and explain the mileage and CO2 savings to their stakeholders.
For more on this programme of activity contact James Oliver.