Development of a Product Environmental Footprint Calculation and Monitoring System for Sustainable Supply Chain Management

The organization faces difficulties in accurately monitoring and managing the environmental footprint of its supply chain activities, including transportation and sourcing processes. Lack of integrated tools hampers the ability to assess sustainability performance, make informed decisions, and demonstrate environmental responsibility to stakeholders.

A mid to large-sized logistics or supply chain organization seeking to monitor and reduce the environmental impact of its operations, including transportation and sourcing.

• Implement a comprehensive system to monitor and calculate the environmental footprint (PEF) of supply chain activities, including production and transportation.
• Provide real-time and historical data analysis to facilitate strategic decisions aimed at reducing overall PEF.
• Enable manual data input and editing to account for external factors and policy changes affecting emissions and routes.
• Develop interactive dashboards to visualize aggregated and component-level PEF metrics for various supply chain nodes.
• Support scenario analysis by allowing users to modify input data and predict its impact on PEF outcomes.
• Integrate with external regulatory databases to update emission norms automatically in future iterations.
• Encourage sustainable practices by making environmental impact a key factor in partner selection and operational adjustments.

• Aggregation and visualization of overall and component-level PEF metrics (e.g., transportation PEF, farm PEF, route-specific PEF).
• Ability to view and analyze historical PEF data to identify trends and improve planning.
• Input forms for manual data entry and editing for suppliers and transport providers without automated monitoring tools.
• Data archiving with audit trail including comments for context on modifications affected by external events (e.g., weather, investments).
• Scenario simulation tools allowing users to modify input parameters (e.g., route distances, emission norms) and observe predicted PEF changes.
• Role-based access controls and user management features.
• Automated data updates from external databases for standardized emission norms (future capability).

• External regulatory databases to update emission norms automatically
• Supply chain partners’ data feeds for real-time activity metrics
• External environmental data sources to contextualize impact factors

• System must support scalable data ingestion to handle large datasets from multiple supply chain partners.
• Dashboard updates should reflect real-time data with minimal latency.
• High security standards for sensitive data, including role-based access controls.
• System availability should meet 99.9% uptime requirements.
• Data integrity and audit trail for all modifications and input changes.

The implementation of this PEF monitoring system is expected to enable the organization to reduce its supply chain environmental footprint through better data-driven decision making, scenario analysis, and partner management. Anticipated benefits include improved sustainability performance visibility, increased stakeholder trust, and alignment with regulatory requirements. Quantifiable impacts include targeted reductions in emissions and operational costs, along with enhanced reputation as an environmentally responsible entity.