Making businesses even stronger and more resilient. This is the objective of the European taxonomy introduced in 2020. It is defined through a classification of so-called "green" economic activities. Luca Silipo, head of GEODIS and creator of the GEODIS WorldLab, provides an overview and explanation.

A complex but essential subject since its introduction in 2020, the European taxonomy aims to provide financial incentives for the sustainable transition of EU-based companies and provides them with a framework to position themselves at the forefront of the fight against climate change. Requiring a significant accounting effort, they concern companies with more than 500 employees that are already obliged to communicate on their extra-financial reporting and require them to specify the share of their turnover, investments and expenditure in so-called "green" activities.

While the supply chain is more than ever in the spotlight, it is increasingly being criticised for its environmental, societal and economic impact. Companies must urgently improve their control of this complex network of interdependencies in which and thanks to which they operate and develop their activities.

Produced in partnership with Arts et Métiers, France Supply Chain and AMRAE, this barometer analyses the challenges faced by companies in the aeronautics, automotive, luxury goods/distribution and services sectors in the face of these risks and sheds light on the areas of work to improve their resilience.

After a first meeting in 2020, France Supply Chain organised a second webinar on RPA on 19 January, with FM Logistic and Groupe Avril. A look back at some concrete examples of how the technology has been used.

On 19 January, the Digital LAB of France Supply Chain, led by Anne-Brigitte Spitzbarth, VP Operations Excellence and Sustainability of Gefco, launched its first 2022 webinar on RPA with the aim of revealing concrete cases of implementation of the solution.

To kick it off, Virginie Fongond, Head of Optimisation and Automation Projects at FM Logistic explains how the logistics company has taken on the subject through a holistic approach. After three years of deployment and a first POC at the end of 2018, it has a portfolio of more than 330 automation projects, 141 of which are currently in production. It has already saved 16,000 hours since December 2020, i.e. a saving of 300,000 euros and as much time reallocated to higher value-added tasks.

In the framework of the Supply Chain 4 Good Lab and in the continuity of the Manifesto, France Supply Chain launches the Best Article Award in Sustainable Supply Chain in association with the International Association for Research in Logistics and Supply Chain Management.

The aim of this initiative is to reward a scientific publication making a significant contribution to the field of sustainable supply chain management. This operation allows us to highlight excellent academic work in the specific fields of logistics management and supply chain management.

Who can participate?

The 2022 edition of this prize is open to research teachers who have published an article in one of the two journals associated with the AIRL-SCM or in a peer-reviewed scientific journal in the field of Supply Chain Management between¹ January 2020 and 31 December 2021. The paper may be in French or English. For those in English, candidates will have to produce a long abstract in French (1000 words).

What are the evaluation criteria?

A jury, made up of teacher-researchers who are members of France Supply Chain and members of the AIRL-SCM, will evaluate the articles according to the following criteria:

The winner(s) will be awarded a €2,000 prize by France Supply Chain at a ceremony to be held during the AIRL-SCM meetings in Clermont Ferrand from 18 to 20 May.

How and when to apply?

Applications for this "Best Sustainable Supply Chain Paper Award - 2022 Edition" consist of an electronic file including :

The winners

Out of 17 entries, two were awarded:

• The "coup de coeur" prize was awarded to Anne Touboulic and Jane Gover for their article "Tales from the countryside: Unpacking 'passing the environmental buck' as hypocritical practice in the food Supply Chain".
• Best Paper Award to Joséphine Riemens, Andrée-Anne Lemieux, Samir Lamouri, Léonore Garnier for their paper "A Delphi-Régnier Study Addressing theChallenges of Textile Recycling in Europe for the Fashion and Apparel Industry

Download the abstracts of the two winning articles:

Agility in the warehouse means agility in the supply chain. But what about real estate scalability? And what will be the contours of tomorrow's warehouse against a backdrop of sustainable development? Through a dedicated webinar, experts from the sector provide some answers.

What are the keys to the warehouse of tomorrow? For Vincent Barale, VP supply chain at Louis Vuitton, the most important factors are the safety and well-being of employees, outdoor spaces and the agility of the building: "We have to commit to the construction of a building for the next 20 or 30 years when we have no idea of the structure of the turnover in the coming weeks. The building must be hyper-agile to keep up with our evolution, to be able to adapt to everything," he stresses. Faced with this observation and the need to integrate a sustainable development approach, what are the prerequisites that can be considered from the design and construction of the building?

Towards an agile and welcoming warehouse

Mario Gallinelli, Systenza's Engineering and Development Director, stresses the need to design the largest possible cell sizes with precautionary measures for subsequent recuts; the optimisation of free storage heights according to fire protection constraints; and the sizing of floors for possible uses: mezzanines, robotisation, mechanisation, etc.

With regard to safety and comfort, Mario Gallinelli mentions the survival zones on the platforms, the pre-painting of the roofs and cladding in white, the natural lighting and the heating and insulation designed for temperatures adapted to the operation. 

Outside the warehouse, in addition to the fitness trails, terraces and ponds, Mario Gallinelli insists on the issue of primary forests: "This creates a stable and resilient ecosystem, results in a reduction in noise and dust, and helps to reduce the additional amount of carbon in the atmosphere," he explains.

Tertiary Decree and reduction of the carbon footprint

These adaptations are all the more important given the promulgation of the tertiary sector decree, which requires each asset to reduce its consumption by 40% by 2030 compared to a reference year between 2010 and 2020, a percentage that will rise to 50% in 2040 and 60% in 2050. In order to respond to this, Benoit Dubois Taine, a partner specialising in energy for logistics and the tertiary sector, for Systenza, recommends a four-stage approach:

Define your objectives

Choose your actions

Anticipating carbon issues

Split the costs between landlord and tenant

A simple and easy to implement approach and explained in detail in the webinar

Decree No. 2019-771 of 23 July 2019, on obligations to reduce final energy consumption in tertiary buildings.

Share our solutions to make progress together on our environmental challenges.

The environment is a major issue today and will be even more so tomorrow. In our warehouses and logistics platforms, you all have successful environmental initiatives. With this challenge, we invite you to highlight your key initiatives for the rest of the community to learn from.

Each participant shall :

Offer a field visit
of one of its warehouses

Participate in the proposed visits
by other participants

to give rhythm to this process

coordinated by Édouard Laumonier of Louis Vuitton.

It will run from November 2021 to July 2022.

Join us, make yourself known to the SC4Good team!

Take part in this fun challenge to go further and faster together.

FRANCE SUPPLY CHAIN is aiming for a massive mobilisation to make the commitment for 150 trucks possible before the end of October.

In a world where the supply chain accounts for 60% to 80% of business activities, the development of sustainable solutions has become essential for organisations concerned about their environmental and social impact. From raw material purchasing to storage and manufacturing, road transport is the source of many of the negative externalities of the supply chain. To support companies in a greener approach, new technologies are emerging offering a multitude of responsible solutions.

With this in mind, FRANCE SUPPLY CHAIN, in association with Club Déméter, has decided to accelerate the transition of road freight transport towards clean vehicles for local use.

During Movin'on 2021, several workshops onhydrogen in heavy goods mobility enabled them to realise the need to create a robust ecosystem for the emergence of these new technologies. However, the implementation of hydrogen trucks would imply transforming the vehicles and the energy distribution points in order to place them in strategic locations in the territory.

Bringing together professionals around this project is essential for the deployment of hydrogen solutions in order to offer shippers and carriers sustainable solutions for the supply chain.

Within the framework of this initiative, SupplyChain4Good is proposing that companies join the movement with a view to creating a consortium under the aegis of FRANCE SUPPLY CHAIN to respond to a European call for projects.

On 23 September in Albi, 42 members met for the launch operation with the presentation of the project and the testing of a hydrogen truck. At the same time, Club Déméter was also exploring this_H2 track through the involvement of its members in POCs but also during a collective exploratory phase in Switzerland.

To go further

On October 6th FRANCE SUPPLY CHAIN and Club Déméter organised a collaborative workshop.  

Taking care of your omnichannel supply chain from upstream to downstream

Best practices for a seamless omnichannel experience

• 

  At Decathlon, Thibault Vandenberghe, chief supply officer in charge of supply for retail and digital transformation, mentions a first angle of attack to make a success of omnichannelity: think about the range, "what we sell and how we structure the offer". He also insists on the distribution network: "it is necessary to propose services adapted to the type of offer. At Decathlon, we set out the different scenarios, put in place industrial solutions and let the retailers use these solutions to tell us what worked best in order to continue learning. An example of this is the implementation of a drive-through system during Covid.

• 

  For his part, Adrien Homolle, supply chain transformation director at Sephora, adds two aspects to stand out: customer customisation and innovation. "More than 250 brands and 40,000 references with their own specificities require the ability to provide a demanding level of service and product availability. We respond to this via different types of delivery: classic, express, click and collect, but also via additional associated services such as engraving or smart sampling. The customer drives the need for pragmatic and adaptable solutions. In order to respond, several mixes must be taken into account: scalability, flexibility, cost, quality of service, etc.

Logistics industrialisation, customer customisation and adaptability, the keys to a successful strategy

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Questions asked during the webinar

• Concerning the IS adaptation part - we inherited 20 different ERPs in Europe which prevented us from having DCs for our clients, so we needed to enter the complex world of order orchestration layer

  Decathlon: Even with a relatively standard environment, there are major projects to make these new schemes possible. In the long term, this will require overhauls and a more modular organisation of our IS by product and teams in agile mode.

  Sephora: We have chosen an ERP (SAP) as a core model, an OMS, a front-end. Despite this, we still have other systems to connect (WMS, etc.) which require constant adaptation of our IT systems.

• "The consumer demands what the citizen refuses"... how do you manage the time -_CO2 balance?

  Decathlon: Our objective is to make environmental data visible in the choices of customers in order to make them actors (display on the product, on the services).

  Sephora: For us, the fastest delivery is the least "costly" in terms of_CO2: Click & Collect; in fact, most of our city centre shops are delivered by Green (electric or CNG). We are otherwise considering consumer expectations in terms of_CO2 information vs. type of delivery.

• How have you readapted your SC on the reverse side (return, exchange...)?

  Decathlon: Still learning from the experience of returning to Decathlon, reverse logistics is still in its infancy.

  Sephora: The returns section for shops has been developed for many years: in particular, with the revaluation of products or packaging used and returned by our customers in shop. For web returns: these can be made in shop or directly by carrier; this last point is still being improved, although it represents a very low rate in France.

• What key indicators do you track in order to measure the supply chain performance of your omnichannel offers?

  Decathlon: Product availability, asset turnover and reduction of environmental impact are the 3 key indicators of transformation (For efficiency it is indeed the triptych Cost, Quality, Time).

• What criteria led to the internalisation of depots (Décathlon) and outsourcing (Séphora)?

  Decathlon: We have invested in this business since its creation, we work with partners, but in our opinion, the choice of know-how remains a determining factor in being innovative and differentiating.

  Sephora: The outsourcing of our logistics partners is historical; but we have a limited number of partners so as to gain synergy and speed in the implementation of new tools.

• Are the indicators at Decathlon parameters of choice in the delivery solution to the customer? (Shipment of the product where it is available versus as close as possible even if it leaves from different points; the fastest versus the most economical...)

  Decathlon: The first priority is availability, then we will offer the target 3 scenarios for the customer: cheaper, faster, less environmental impact.

• Do you have different legal entities in your network that have led to questions about margins, who carries the stock, internal re-invoicing, physical returns, etc.?

  Decathlon: Yes, this is an important issue to consider because in a model with more market place the options are even more numerous.

  Sephora: Yes, we have different legal entities per country.

• What WHO technologies do you use?

  Decathlon: The technologies chosen are developed by our digital teams, and some of the components are those of the publishers of our stock sources.

  Sephora: We use Order Dynamics as our OMS, in conjunction with Salesforce and SAP.

• What technical solution do you use for omnichannel?
  In particular for the management of stocks available for sale in mini-warehouses.

  Decathlon: The work of accessibility of stocks in shops and warehouses is managed in the website application. We are limited today by the choice of scenarios and this also means that we have to manage this intelligence on all fronts. Technical architecture work is underway to decouple the display of the promise from the scenario calculation modules and to make these functions compatible with an infinite number of stock sources. This is a project that is currently being deployed and is scheduled for 2022.

• There is a lot of talk about ROPO. How do you manage web-based product search data on shop inventory?

  Decathlon: We display shop stocks in our shopping paths. If the customer decides to complete his purchase in shop without managing it in Click & Collect 1h, it is the customer identification data that allows us to reconcile the search and purchase. We do not monitor this data on a daily basis but it is done.

  Sephora: We take into account shop and warehouse stocks during the customer journey on our website, with the customer being offered purchase completion in/from a shop (C&C or SFS) or delivery.

• You have talked about reducing the environmental impact of transport by 45% in 3 years. What indicators are you monitoring to ensure that this objective is achieved?

  Decathlon: We detail this objective with indicators for the choice of modes of transport, the evolution of the energy used for these same transports, the kilometres travelled and the fill rate of our trucks.