Filed under: bio-fuel, purchasing management, raw materials, sustainable development, sustainable procurement
According to a recent book written by the french authors Jean-Daniel and Elsa Pellet Jatropha curca is going to be the main energy supply of the future.This plant able to grow in very dry areas of our planet has some big advantages compared to other bio-fuels:
– Jatropha curca is extremely resistant to climatic conditions (heat, few water). It can, thus, be planted in dry zones and is already in use to fight desertification.
– It does also resist to other natural influences such as animal damages or fast weather changes better than other plants.
– Plantations are very economic as Jatropha curca can be planted on soils were other agricultural use is impossible and the residuals of oil productions make up a very well performing fertilizer.
To sum it up, Jatropha curca does not only allow to produce bio-fuel in a cheaper way, it will even help naturally disadvantaged geographic areas to relaunch an economic activity.
So, is Jatropha curca the miracle that will change the geostrategic positionings during the decades to come?
Some countries have already launched projects to make use of the plant’s benefits. India plans to plant 40M hectares by 2012 and China, Thailand and Vietnam are analysing various solutions. Some – maybe very clever – investors have spend important amounts on private plantations in these countries.
But first tests are quite frustrating. In the early 90’s, a Nicaraguan plantation only produced 200 litres per hectare, far from the expected 1900 litres. Recent test in Brazil have shown ambiguous results.
May genetic manipulation improve the output quality of the plant or is it just a matter of time and experience to know how to manage plantations best?
We’ll probably know it soon…
Filed under: purchasing management, sustainable construction, sustainable development, sustainable procurement
Everybody has heard about Sustainable Development. It’s a little bit like Web 2.0. Some people think that it’s just a temporary trend that will fortunately pass away soon, others think that we will all disappear if we don’t care about it.
There are thousands of definitions of SD and mine will be only another one but I think it summarizes very well the core idea of this term. For me, Sustainable Development is to decide and take all your daily actions in a way that your children’s children’s children can decide and do the same things using the same ressources.
Recently, I saw a nice example of Sustainable Developmennt in the building sector. To sum it up, architects and builders have to respect three main rules to construct in a sustainable way:
1) Use environmental friendly materials. Production and recycling should be possible respecting basic environmental rules.
2) Save energy over the building’s lifetime (heating, electricity, water, maintenance, etc)
3) Minimize the building’s demolition costs by using easy-to-deconstruct materials.
Sustainable Procurement, such as Sustainable Construction, are only small parts of all the actions that can be taken in the Sustainable Development movement (if it is a movement, because for some it’s the final objective of humanity).
Sustainability can be incorporated into the whole procurement process: defining the need, evaluating options, design and specifying, supplier selection, tender evaluation, post-contract management and supplier development.
For the implementation of this processes, companies face a triangular trade-off between minimizing the impact of the supply chain (e.g. reducing electricity cost of your production line, our using environment friendly coatings, etc.), minimizing the impact of your products (e.g. recyclable cable rolls) and buying ressource efficient goods and services (e.g. make your employees drive vehicles with low fuel consumption).
The implementation of a sustainable procurement process is not feasable in a week. It will take a certain time until your company’s internal and external environment will have integrated the idea into its operational and strategic decision making.
To make the transition easier, you can chose a 3-step approach:
1) Define a sustainable development and procurement policy and communicate about it. Tell your customers that you’re doing it (by the way, SD is a very great marketing argument…) and your suppliers what you’re doing. And… don’t forget to inform your employees. They should be the first to be aware of your decision. You’ll have to fix new quality standards, define the roles of your employees and adopt whole life cost management and accounting techniques.
2) Develop a dialogue with your suppliers. They have to be entirely integrated into the evolution of your new processes from the beginning. That will help them safe money and increase their cooperation. For simple, standardized products, you can ask them to deliver them corresponding to your sustainability policy. For more complex ones, you will have to go the way with your supplier by implementing a close cooperation and or a product co-development.
3) Extend sustainability measures to the rest of your supply chain, from need definition to waste recycling.
Now you’ll tell me that you know some hippie survivors who are still fighting for a green earth, but that you can’t imagine a company deleting cheaper but non-sustainable suppliers from its adress book.
I think that there are three main reasons making Sustainable Procurement interesting for a company:
1) Working with whole life capital cost can prove that more expensive materials can become profitable by consuming less energy during product lifetime.
2) Customers will pay a higher price for the same product if they know that it has been produced in a sustainable way
3) There are so many public subsidies out there able to make the company’s sustainability policy profitable and help launching a vertuous cycle.
Pay one, take two! 