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玛莎百货的可持续发展综述
Sustainable Development A Review Of Marks Spencer
根据目前的情况，经济增长的维度存在着快速增长的态势。许多行业只关注经济层面的问题。他们只关心提高他们的生产力。社会、生活质量和环境质量都被忽视了。因此，许多部门，如政府部门、私营部门、工业界和其他组织，现在更关注的是可持续发展的问题。目前的挑战正在改变，从专注于生产力，以确定如何将环境管理原则纳入他们的日常决策过程中，这是了解环境和供应链效率之间的权衡
According to the current situation, there is rapid increasing of development in a dimension of economic growth. Many industries do concern only in economic dimension. They concerned only in improving their productivity. Social, quality of life and environmental have been ignored. As a result, many sectors such as government sector, private sector, industrial sector and other organisations are now paying more attention to this issue that is sustainable development. The challenge are now changing from focusing on productivity to determining how to incorporate environmental management principles into their daily decision-making process, which is understanding the trade offs between environmental and supply chain efficiency (Wu et al., 1995).
A picture above demonstrates a visual representation of three components, environmental, social and economic performance. This perspective corresponds to the idea of the triple bottom line, which considers and balances economic, environmental and social goals from a microeconomic standpoint. (Carter et al., 2008 cited Elkington, 2004) It can be argued that any organizations are now trying to put themselves in an intersection area between those 3 circles, which is sustainability. As they realise that there are activities that they can engage in which not only positively affect the natural environment and society, but which also result in long-term economic beneï¬ts and competitive advantage for the ï¬rms.
There is no doubt that globalisation plays a significant role in the new era of supply chain management. There are many industries around the world outsourcing, which result in cost reduction and become more competitive in the market. With regard to an increasing in demand, many companies have become more competitive and are trying to find the best strategy that suits for their organisations based on their structure. Each strategy is different and changed over the period time. Nowadays, environment is the concerning issues to plan the strategies. Compare to the past, people did not concern to the environmental issue much. The example can be seen from many products in the market that use less packaging, made from recycled materials or using plastic bag that is biodegradable and so on. Environmental concern is now one of a major issue that whenever organisations plan to do something, environmental issue needs to be discussed in dept and put it into their plans. They will now have to take responsible for the environmental and social performance of their suppliers and partners. They cannot ignore it. Being environmentally responsible means improving operational efficiency by conserving resources and reuse them as much as possible. Costs can also be deducted by reducing amount of resources used, and using reusable and recycled materials. (WU et al., 1995) In the UK, There is a clear recognition that the major retailers are claiming to be increasingly integrating sustainability into their core business (Jones et al., 2008). Marks and Spencer is also one of those major retailers.
Marks and Spencer is one of the UK' s leading retailers, established in 1884 as a single market stall in Leeds, England and developed through the 20th century into an iconic British retailer and now become the UK's most important institution. They sell very wide range of products, which their core business include foods, cloths and home products. According to the 2008/09 annual reports, there are totally 668 UK stores, 39 outlets and 209 high streets, with over 78000 team members and over 2000 suppliers, which can ensure that its brand will continue to offer Quality, Value, Service, Innovation and Trust.(M&S 2008/09 annual report). Marks and Spencer has started environmental strategy articulated in January 2007, which is called "plan A". They found that 72% of customers surveyed are concerned about environmental issues, with 73% saying that the recession had not changed their concern. Plan A is an environmental plan that will influence on every section of the business through its period of time (2007-2012).
Literature review 文献综述
Sustainable supply chain management can be defined as the management of material and information flows as well as cooperation among companies along the supply chain, which consider three dimensions of sustainable development, which are economic, environmental and social. (2008??). About 68 per cent of the Global 250 ï¬rms generated a separate annual sustainability report in 2004 which considered environmental, social, and economic issues(Carter et al., 2008). It will require alteration to present systems and services. Services need to be available and provided with a reduction in the use of materials. (McGhie, 2001) There are many organisations in related supply chain industries introduce green and socially responsible products, proactively and services to the market or processes to their supply chains. Therefore, organisations see these dimensions as issues that need to be addressed for them to remain competitive in an increasingly aware world and market. A company, Perstorp Xytec (formerly Xytec) introduced the first large, solid-wall plastic bins to the US market in 1973. The bins were designed for agricultural and fishing industries and use as an alternative choice for wooden and steel containers. They began designing specialised reusable container systems for major automobile manufacturers such as General Motors (GM), Ford and other customers in automobile industries. (Saphire, 1994) General Motors, who is leading in automobile industries in the USA, has reduced disposal costs by $12 million by using a reusable container programme with their suppliers. (WWW) Mexican Bakery Company in Mexico used hybrid trucks in order to delivery their products. As a result, they can reduce the amount of CO2 emissions by 40 per cent and amount of CO by 90 per cent (ref to Business source premiere "Mexican Bakery Buys First Hybrid Truck In Mexico"). BMW, the German car maker uses rail to ship its parts and fully assembled cars in Europe to help preserve the environment while saving transport and packaging costs (WU et al., 1995). While AT&T expects to save packaging waste by requiring its mobile phone equipment suppliers to reduce packaging by using less materials. By the end of 2011, AT&T expects its suppliers to reduce packaging and use non petroleum based inks and recycled materials for in-box materials. It can be argued that many organisations already have the technology to solve many environmental problems. Although there are several strategies to be used, but those strategies will lead to the same objective, which is protecting the environment from any harmful substances. Moreover, the barriers to sustainable development are becoming organisational and social.
Green supply chain strategy 绿色供应链战略
The objectives of moving toward green supply chain is that organisation had to concern to both upstream and downstream in order to become 100% green. The upstream that is suppliers would have to concern about purchasing of raw materials to be used whether it is purely environmentally friendly or not. Purchasing managers, who are facing ethical and social responsibility issues, must now making a new decision whether to buy from low cost suppliers or from more expensive but environmentally friendly. According to changing in consumers buying behaviours. Consumers are now more concerning in environmental issue. For example, in a supermarket, numbers of customers who use reusable bags is increasing. Accompany with they are main stakeholder that might have a large effect to the point of sales of the companies if the companies are trying to sell the product that is not environmentally friendly.
While in downstream 下游
In order to become a 100% green, the following indicators will have to be addressed
- Green supply; in terms of purchasing from green supplier by using environmentally friendly methods such as using paperless or buying a 100% recyclable materials from suppliers who have minimised their environmental impact without reducing the quality of their products or drastically increasing costs. As a result of purchasing products from green suppliers, organisations can then begin their green supply chain before any material reaches their site.
- Green logistics; attempt to distribute, store, transport products by using activities that produce less CO2 emissions. Organisations also have to design products and package and type of transportations that is suitable for the related activities. For instance, some transportation companies prefer full container load (FCL) rather than less than container load (LCL). Bowersox et al., (2007) states that "LCL experiences a higher percentage of fixed costs that FCL"
- Green design or Eco-design; involves a particular framework for considering environmental issues, Reduce or minimize the use of non-renewable resources and manage renewable resources to certify sustainability. |
