Category Archives: Sustainability

Enviormental concerns. Global warming.

“Women use cars for time management”

Posted on September 19, 2011 by | Leave a comment

… would probably sum up this article (Jain et al., in press). Here’s the twist: The caring aspect of women may lead to the choice of other transportation modes (notably more sustainable ones) otherwise but is outweighed by the question of time management related to the schooling of dependent children. In other words, if you run back and forth to school and the hobbies of your kids (who doesn’t cry out loud at people calling that “logistics”?), you stop caring about the environment. Quite an issue to take into account from a sustainable behaviour perspective. I wonder how personal carbon emission budgets would affect this though.

Gyöngyi

PS. Loved the interesting method of the article though.

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Posted in Academic publications, Carbon management, Popular science, Sustainability, Transport geography

Now: CR3

Posted on April 8, 2011 by | Leave a comment

aka corporate responsibility to the cube. The conference started well with a keynote that focused on supply chain management when problematising the multinational corporation as a political actor. The SCM stream then assembled an interesting combination of very diverse types of sustainable SCM research, tackling anything from the organic banana supply chain to joint intra-sectoral approaches in auditing suppliers to corruption in development supply chains. Quite in accord with the theme of the conference (the power of responsibility) a common conclusion of the SCM stream can be summarised as “documents and standards are nice, but control of actions is needed instead”. Or, as the insight of a paper on forest certification exemplified, no forestry company has yet lost any customer because of not having ratified the certificate…

Gyöngyi

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Posted in Conferences, Corporate Social Responsibility, Supply Chain Management, Sustainability

Literature review made easy

Posted on April 7, 2011 by | 1 Comment

There are lots of literature reviews and conceptual papers out there so this is not the thing. This “ListAssist” is making the start easier listing key articles and book chapters in particular areas denoting their content but also their methods. There are three within the area of “operations and logistics management”: logistics and supply chain management, humanitarian logistics, and sustainable technology management. A good start making research – and teaching – somewhat easier.

Gyöngyi

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Posted in Academic publications, Humanitarian supply chains, Logistics, Operations management, Research & Methodology, Supply Chain Management, Sustainability

Old hat, new hat: energy efficiency

Posted on July 2, 2010 by | 1 Comment

We are still talking about energy efficiency (and carbon efficiency) while other industries have gone much further and introduced plus-energy initiatives. Plus-energy housing, for instance, goes beyond the idea of self-sufficiency of the passive house and energy efficient house (here’s a comparison). But who says this is only an initiative in architecture? Solar power plants can also be used for fork lifts, even in areas where sunshine is not given all year round (and solar panels could potentially be covered by snow), ventilation systems can recover the energy they used, entire farms can work on a plus-energy principle, etc. Whilst these initiatives are mainly location-bound and focus on products that (arguably) use most energy during their usage period, the concept is still to be employed in the supply chain. As is the concept of water harvesting and preservation – the water footprint of the supply chain. There is always room for improvement.

Gyöngyi

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Posted in Carbon management, Socks and sandals, Sustainability

Corporate responsibility to the cube – CR3

Posted on May 26, 2010 by | Leave a comment

A number of universities came together to organise a conference on corporate responsibility that would attract scholars from a variety of disciplines. Not surprisingly, it also has a supply chain management stream. Check out the CR3 conference here – and come to Helsinki in April 2011 (Apr 8-9). Abstract deadline Nov 15, 2010

Gyöngyi

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Posted in Call for papers, Conferences, Corporate Social Responsibility, Supply Chain Management, Sustainability

Play and learn SCM

Posted on April 1, 2010 by | 3 Comments

Edutainment or playful learning? Luckily there are tons of educational games out there. Some new ones I discovered are card games on vaccinations, climate change etc. and a wonderful collection on e-games and also videos for ops mgmt and SCM class. Time to start playing!

Gyöngyi

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Posted in Education & Management Development, Operations management, Socks and sandals, Supply Chain Management, Sustainability

Green and healthy supply chains

Posted on March 22, 2010 by | 1 Comment

Trendspotting on our CFP wall points again at two current focal themes of research, “green supply chain management” and “health care supply chains”. Here’s a more focused assembly of the CFPs.

Green supply chain management: Mar 31 is the deadline of two calls for papers on this topic (sustainability with a call on “Supply chain sustainability“ and Transportation Research Part E on “Green supply chain management“). It then follows with a CFP for the African Journal of Economic and Management Studies on “CSR in Africa“ (Jun 30), and another for the Journal of Cleaner Production on “Sustainability management beyond corporate boundaries“ (Aug 31). The International Journal of Production Economics has two at almost the same time, “Green manufacturing and distribution in the fashion and apparel industries“ (Sep 30) and “Sustainable development of manufacturing and services“ (Oct 30). Timely enough, the International Journal of Physical Distribution and Logistics Management dedicated its first two numbers of 2010 to sustainability in supply chains. Now even marketing journals are waking up for the topic, see e.g. the Journal of Marketing Management CFP on “Re-visiting contemporary issues in green/ethical marketing” (due in a year, Mar 1, 2011).

Health care operations and SCM: Apr 6 is the first deadline to note here, with a CFP for the European Journal of Operational Research on “Operations research in health care“. One can also note the Annals of Operations Research calls for papers on “OR in the public sector and NPO“ (Apr 30), OR Spectrum’s CFP on “Healthcare operations management“ (Jun 30), as well as CFPs for Decision Support Systems on “Modeling for better healthcare“ (Sep 15), Computers and Operations Research on “Operations research for health care delivery“ (Dec 2010). It is mostly OR and OM research that is called for in health care right now.

Gyöngyi

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Posted in Academic journals, Call for papers, Carbon management, Corporate Social Responsibility, environment, Logistics, Operations management, Supply Chain Management, Sustainability

Radical change for green logistics

Posted on February 10, 2010 by | Leave a comment

How do you induce radical change in green logistics? The discussion easily drifts into one of policy, taxes and transport, but what are the effects on systems and supply chains? Green logistics may require a redefinition of delivery service requirements based on the idea of reducing inventory costs and rather, introduce longer lead times etc. The question is not only whether industry is up for it, but is academia ready to go down that road? An award goes to the first SCM textbook that embraces this idea and implements it through all concepts and chapters – the new Green Logistics book perhaps :-)

Árni and Gyöngyi seeking a new paradigm at a green logistics workshop

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Posted in Carbon management, Socks and sandals, Sustainability

Speaking out

Posted on December 18, 2009 by | Leave a comment

Stephen Dunne, Stefano Harney and Martin Parker are “speaking out” on the irresponsibility of management (incl. ops mgmt, SCM, even critical management) intellectuals. Their analysis shows incredibly low figures for any topics related to responsibility in a variety of management journals. The point was well taken by Andrew and Margaret Taylor who called for more such research to be submitted to e.g. IJOPM. The ball has been passed on…

Gyöngyi

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Posted in Academic journals, Academic publications, Call for papers, Corporate Social Responsibility, Operations management, Supply Chain Management, Sustainability

Now: LRN 2009

Posted on September 11, 2009 by | 2 Comments

Here we are at the Logistics Research Network conference in Cardiff. This year’s presentations were of outstanding quality. Not surprisingly there was a big green logistics track, with anything from green SCM capabilities to CO2 emissions in cities to transportation emissions represented. Other interesting (or let’s say, unusual ones) were on food supply chains and logistics education. Humanitarian logistics figured again.

A novelty at this conference was a “best poster” award. What a great idea! People had been put down about not getting into the proceedings and “just” presenting a poster. Funny that poster sessions in say, health care, or engineering, are seen as really positive, while at logistics conferences they are less appreciated. But posters have their own place at a conference, for research in its early phase, as well as to find collaborators for new projects. So why don’t SCM academics want to present posters at a conference?

Gyöngyi

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Posted in Carbon management, Conferences, Humanitarian supply chains, Logistics, Supply Chain Management, Sustainability