Ladies and Gentlemen,

Like many others, I attended Supply Chain Magasine's excellent Green Supply Chain Day at ESCP. Another great day of sharing around a forward-looking theme.

In the midst of the presentations, I picked out a few key points:

• François-Michel Lambert, Member of Parliament in charge of the national logistics conference, declares "At last, logistics is becoming a national state priority".
• Bruno Laine, Supply Chain Director at Unilever, notes that "the cost of doing nothing is higher than the cost of doing something".
• Kuehne & Nagel's Marc Mandaroux demonstrates what an international company can do for its customers in terms of CO2 monitoring.
• The unequivocally-named CO2 company has invented the CO2 individual savings account, which pays direct cash dividends to motivate employees in companies committed to environmental savings.
• Yannick Buisson demonstrates that HQE buildings are now an accessible, unavoidable and above all economically efficient reality to support the growth forecast on three continents.

En-fin! The green Supply Chain is no longer a subject reserved for a few enlightened fanatics with little concern for the €uros.

The end! We realize that the environment is not the sworn enemy of the income statement, but an effective support.

End of story! Going "green" is recognized as a sustainable business strategy, not a dogma

Even so, we're not too happy about it.

First of all, even though over 85% of Supply Chain Directors say they want to implement a sustainable development policy, less than 20% actually do so. Not for lack of conviction, no, just for lack of time and, in my opinion, because it's hard to know where to start.

Well, let's keep it simple and start with the basics. As our lean friends say, "What can't be measured can't be improved". So let's measure it!

The problem is complexity: regulations are changing at breakneck speed, first it's CO2, then greenhouse gases, then particulate matter, and all of a sudden there's urban congestion, noise... It's never-ending. No sooner have we set up a system with our IT (always long and costly) than the calculation becomes obsolete, we have to start again and it's difficult to compare data from one year to the next. This encourages me to outsource.

Some carriers calculate CO2, but that's not viable either, because you can't be both judge and jury. And frankly, CO2 is good, but we're a long way from a stable indicator over time. No, we definitely need a mixed indicator.

Sad to say, there's onlyone viable player on the market today,as cited by Castorama Supply Chain Director Laurent Nicastro: the TKBlue Agency system .

I love it.

• It's an independent, external rating agency that monitors CO2, legal transport documents and economic performance, and takes into account all the above-mentioned aspects of sustainable transport... their famous TK'Blue and its alter ego, the TK'€uro, which translates the environmental gain into €.
• These indicators are based on actual calculations, not on minimum "union" estimates.
• It's biblically simple to implement, with SAS and projects lasting less than 10 days.
• It's future-proof, since the platform immediately adapts to each legal update.
• It encourages carriers to declare the actual fleet used for the shipper.

The transparency needed to work together towards sustainable performance. You're going to say to me, " But why is he getting involved with this solution provider?" Well, simply because it's the first time I've seen such a straightforward and relevant player in its field, with the major drawback of being alone in a European market that absolutely has to get involved now.

So for once, I'm going for it.

The time for waiting is over, let's act together if you want to read previous news: here