The Supply Chain Operations Reference model (SCOR) was developed by the Supply-Chain Council as the standard tool for evaluating, measuring, and improving supply chain performance.

However, like similar traditional models in finance, marketing, and accounting that are inaccurate due to their disregard of key social and environmental risks, the SCOR model is in need of an upgrade. 

Supply chain and information systems has a unique role of ensuring the company has a data-driven understanding of its social and environmental impacts. There are numerous frameworks for evaluating a company’s supply chain and operations.

A few notable assessments supply chain managers should be familiar with include: Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), and Social Impact Assessment (SIA). 

Supply chain professionals of the past focused only on forward logistics, moving inputs and products through the value chain and ultimately to the customer.

Moving forward, reverse or circular logistics will dominate: moving inputs and products through the value chain and then into either technical cycles (for durable goods) or biological cycles (for food and organic materials)–keeping materials and molecules in value streams and out of waste streams.

Sustainable Procurement is a new dimension for procurement functions who have traditionally based decisions primarily on price, quality and time. Sustainable procurement goes beyond the traditional economic parameters and involves making decisions based on the whole life cost, the associated risks, measures of success and implications for society and the environment. 

Sustainable manufacturing optimizes energy and resource consumption while safeguarding work health and safety, and the well-being of the local community. Approaches include the reduction and elimination of by-products through cleaner process technologies and lean production. Similar approaches are used to improve the total performance of warehouses using the latest technology to optimize for people, planet and profit.

Logistics and transportation processes form a vital part of the supply chain of any company. It also presents a great opportunity for companies to make positive changes by reducing ecological impacts and ensuring worker health and safety. From packaging and shipping materials to choices of transportation, logistics is a cornerstone of sustainability performance.
 

Supply chain professionals have the unique opportunity to integrate human and labor rights into decision-making processes of the enterprise. As companies compete on production costs and tight margins, the incentives to seek for lower labor costs and standards are higher than ever. Meanwhile, pressure to prove workers are being treated fairly is mounting from customers, investors, employees, regulators, watchdog groups, and others.