Supply Chain Management Roundtable

Supply Chain Management Roundtable held their inaugural meeting at the AIChE Tampa Conference on April 30, 2009.

The overall goal of the Sustainable Management Roundtable is to address how industry is reducing its impacts along its chain.

An inaugural session held on April 30, 2009 provided an overview on how business is seeking to evaluate supplies and suppliers in terms of green products and supplier practices and it reviewed whether and how to proceed in developing a collaborative standard for a sustainable supply chain.

The panel discussed efforts in pushing sustainability into supply chains and the associated challenges, and potential or actual solutions. A straw-man sustainability scorecard was presented that addresses the issues around which suppliers/supplies can be evaluated; and the role and need of the chemical industry in setting evaluation criteria for suppliers along various product categories were reviewed.  Key issues discussed include:

• Where should the industry start in setting criteria?
• What types of products should be evaluated initially?
• What impacts are most important and should have highest weight?

Is there a need to establish an ongoing collaboration between companies to define a set of evaluation criteria and pilot an evaluation system? If so, what form should this collaborative effort take? Who should be included?

Panelists include: 

• Companies
• Biofuels: Finding a sustainable way forward, Paul Ayoub, Project Implementation Manager and Biofuels Engineer 
• BASF and Sustainability, Ronald Sizemore, Procurement Manager 
• Creating Stakeholder Engagement while Navigating the Sustainability Journey, Paul Linzmeyer, US delegate 
• EPA
• Sustainable Product Network, James Darr 
• DFE Program, Kelly Grant
• Sustainable Packaging Coalition (Sara Hartwell - invited)
• Industry Consortia
• Member of the Sedex consortium (Sherilyn Brodersen, Cadbury or Petar Sobic, Unilever - invited)
• Automobile Association’s Suppliers Partnership for the Environment, Material Assessment Protocol (member invited)

Additional virtual meetings have been held in organizing the roundtable and identifying their objectives on August 2009 at ICOSSE and September 8, 2009.

Upcoming virtual meetings are scheduled as follows:

For additional information contact ifs@aiche.org