Earlier this year I posted a blog entry discussing the outlook for the high tech industry in 2009. I discussed how many of the computer and electronics manufacturers were starting to embrace the whole ‘green thing’ so to speak.
Today, there is a growing trend by the computer manufacturers to develop low cost, smaller, more power efficient netbooks. Apple for example recently launched a range of computers that used greener materials in both their products and packaging. Apple and indeed the other manufacturers are some way off achieving truly green status and of course it is not just the OEMs that have to embrace greener technologies, as so much of today’s electronics products are outsourced to contract manufacturers, the whole high tech supply chain needs to adopt greener ways of working.
The high tech industry is one of the most global in nature, probably second only to the automotive industry in terms of the location of suppliers and manufacturing plants. As well as designing and manufacturing greener products it is important that other areas of the supply chain, such as logistics and distribution also embrace the greener ways of working. Last year I discussed how some companies were establishing green multi-modal logistics networks and also how the effect of reverse globalization was actually shortening many supply chains and bringing the manufacturing plants closer to the point of distribution to the retail networks.
Over the past few months I have been keeping track of a tool on Greenpeace’s website that provides a dashboard which compares the green strategies of many of the world’s leading producers of computer and electronic devices. The dashboard below shows how some of the leading high tech companies in the world are embracing green methods of working, both in the design and manufacture of their products but also in terms of how these companies manage the re-cycling of their products once they have ended their useful life. To review the position of the companies for previous periods simply click on one of the numbers that appears in the bottom left of the dashboard.
As of July 2009, Nokia heads Greenpeace’s list as being the most green manufacturer of electronic devices. Nokia has achieved this rating, in part, by offering to take back any mobile phone that they sell and then recycle the components accordingly. They have 84 collection points around the world for consumers to deposit their Nokia phones when they come to the end of their useful life or they simply upgrade to newer models. Returning Nokia phones provides an interesting challenge from a return logistics point of view and this is an area that I will be taking a closer look at to see what green practices Nokia are employing with this process. Sony Ericsson scores relatively highly due to its improved used of more energy efficient batteries across its product range. At the bottom of the list is the games console manufacturer Nintendo who is just starting to embrace the use of greener components within their products, ie the use of PVC free wiring within their consoles. It is actually quite interesting to read through the reasons and scoring that Greenpeace applies to the electronic manufacturers that make up the green dashboard shown above, to get a better insight of each company click here. In fact the dashboard shown above contains three years of data so you can see how the companies have changed their strategies over the past three years, all the information that is used to deliver the information on the dashboard is available via public sources such as company reports and other sources.
Since writing another green related blog last year, which discussed how many of today’s CIOs are asking prospective vendors and suppliers to provide green credentials as part of submitting proposals, GXS has now launched a new microsite which explains how we have embraced the green movement, so to speak. My colleague Bryan Larkin has been driving this project from a marketing perspective and you will find a few interesting entries on his blog about how we are helping companies address their green challenges.
As you will know, one of the main benefits of EDI is that it helps to take paper out of the supply chain and given that we can measure the number and type of transactions moving across our global network we can calculate the savings in paper that companies are realizing through the use of our GXS Trading Grid ® network and associated services. The image to the left was captured from the site on the 7th September 2009 and it helps to illustrate the significant savings we are helping companies make by sending their business transactions across our network. For further information on how GXS can improve the green credentials of your supply chain, take a look at our new green microsite, you can find it at www.greensupplychain.com.
