Green SCM has been around for quite some time, it’s just sad it needs the extra political push to make it the headlines. In any case, carbon emissions have in the past year or so become a really “hot topic” even in the supply chain. Now the topic is being watered down. No, don’t get me wrong, it is not losing in relevance. Just, the next big thing is the topic of water itself.
The part of it that makes the headlines is the question of bottled water. It is almost comical that the sales of bottled water is on the rise even in countries such as Finland while recent water quality assessments point out that Finnish tap water is “better” than any bottled water on the market… It seems that companies selling bottled water knew this all along, having only as late as 2007 been forced to spell out the lovely acronym of PWC on its bottles, which meant nothing else than “public water source“.
Just think of the carbon footprint of shipping water around! Water not exactly being a “light” product, it is no wonder that humanitarian aid projects rather provide water purification tablets than actual water wherever this is an option – also, to meet the UN’s Millenium Development Goals related to water & sanitation. Talking about the carbon footprint, shouldn’t we start looking into the water footprint of supply chains soon?
Gyöngyi
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