90% of business executives believe sustainability is important. And 60% of them have some level of sustainability initiatives. The concept of sustainability has come a long way from being a far-fetched ideology to a dominant narrative that is now defining how companies run their operations.
Today, regulators, businesses, and consumers are striving for peerless sustainability. Considering that 80% of consumers won’t identify with a brand that doesn’t take sustainability seriously, it becomes easy to see why. But, making strides towards sustainable operations can be challenging.
In a world where businesses and their supply chains are eager to protect the environment, there are a few strategies that they can leverage successfully. One of the most critical of these strategies is digital partnerships.
Leveraging digital partnerships to achieve peerless sustainability provides a platform for multiple businesses to pool and share resources for innovation, create a scalable process, and enhance the transparency and accountability of all companies involved in the process.
Digital partnerships enhance collaboration, which is the cornerstone of sustainability. Collaboration has allowed businesses to unlock creativity and maximize available resources in their pursuit of sustainability. There is only so much a single business can do to move beyond this.
Digital Partnerships are Key to Sustainable Global Supply Chains
Between 8 to 11% of global greenhouse gas emissions are traceable to logistics and shipping operations. As regulators and stakeholders push for businesses to build sustainable shipping practices, it’s become vital for these businesses to leverage every tool available to decrease transportation emissions.
One of the most robust and productive strategies for achieving this is using digital partnerships.
What Are Digital Partnerships And What Is Their Role in Sustainability
Digital partnerships are collaborations between businesses and their supply chains, made possible through digital platforms, to achieve a common goal: sustainability.
Fostering partnerships or business collaboration enhances seamless data sharing and innovation among stakeholders. By leveraging technology and shared resources, these partnerships enable more efficient resource management, reduced environmental impact for each business in the partnership, and the development of scalable solutions to address sustainability challenges.
Benefits of Digital Partnerships For Businesses and The Environment
While digital partnerships focusing on sustainability benefit the parties or businesses involved, the ultimate winner is the environment. Here are some benefits of digital collaboration for companies and the environment.
Enhanced Efficiency
Digital partnerships mean learning from partner companies in collaboration. All parties can work together to achieve a streamlined process across all the businesses’ supply chain and shipping operations. This improves efficiency, leading to improved sustainability and less negative environmental impact from the operations.
Improved Collaboration
Collaboration is a concept that has been introduced previously. However, it can be tricky to achieve. Primarily because without the right platforms, it can be difficult to enforce accountability and transparency. With digital partnerships, that is no longer the case. The technology solutions make it clear that every party’s contributions and activities concerning sustainability are clear for all to see, forcing more compliance across the board.
Environmental Impact Reduction
Digital partnerships facilitate more dependency on the necessary tech solutions to improve the environmental impact of the supply chains in partnership. These solutions foster information sharing, innovation, and data analysis of current practices and their results. In turn, businesses can make data-driven decisions that should contribute to reducing carbon emissions, waste, and environmental footprint.
Ultimately, it yields better results in the chase for better sustainability.
Three Key Components of Effective Digital Partnerships
Digital partnerships are indeed great for improving or enhancing sustainability practices. However, any system is at the mercy of its components and structure. For the digital partnership strategy to work in sustainability, three components must be in place.
Collaboration Platforms and Technologies
Collaboration platforms are vital to getting started on digital partnerships, as they serve as conduits for enhancing synergy among businesses or supply chains currently collaborating. With these two in place, you can ensure real-time communication between the partners, optimized operations, enhanced transparency, and a more cohesive partnership.
Matching collaborative platforms with the right tech solutions will drive the collective effort towards better sustainability goals. It will help the supply chains and shipping operations involved navigate their processes to drive a more positive impact on the environment.
Data Sharing and Transparency
The primary objective of the digital partnership is to pool resources, including infrastructure, time, and other resources, to achieve sustainability goals. For this to be done right, there has to be free-flowing data among the collaborators or partners, and there has to be 100% transparency, at least where sustainability is concerned.
With these two present, you can expect more accountability and informed decision-making in their respective operations. Data sharing and transparency also means openly exchanging information on the environmental impacts of supply chain and shipping operations, the resource usage, and performance metrics used to track the progress of the stakeholders.
This way, they can identify inefficiencies, track progress, and implement targeted interventions to mitigate environmental footprints, driving overall sustainability improvements.
Continuous Communication and Feedback Loops
Beyond collaborating, data sharing, and the willingness to be transparent, ensuring continuous communication between the stakeholders and partners involved in digital partnerships is essential. This way, there is a free-flowing feedback loop, and the collaborators can effectively analyze it to track progress. The feedback loop also helps these stakeholders determine if they are on the right track regarding their sustainability goals.
A good feedback loop encourages ongoing dialogue and allows the participating businesses to identify challenges, share best practices, and iterate on sustainability initiatives in real time. Naturally, all of this will foster collaboration, promote alignment of goals, and ensure agile responses to emerging sustainability issues. It all drives continuous improvement.
Greenable Ensures Seamless Digital Partnerships For Shippers
Although digital partnerships are a great strategy, finding the right platform can be challenging. But, what if you had it on your fingertips? A digital platform that combines the best in class research and consulting support for shippers to take a holistic approach to mitigating their carbon footprint.
Greenabl offers this and more. On our platform, shippers can:
- Understand and implement practical operational solutions to mitigate supply chain emissions without breaking the bank.
- Gain real-time access to analytics that measure their specific impact and monitor the supply chain’s decarbonization efforts over time.
- Leverage the best-in-class GLEC Framework to measure greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
- Choose the carbon projects that best suit their needs.
Getting started is easy. Contact Greenabl today.
