It's Transport Day: Committed to Making a Change.

The tension seems to exist between the likes of the The World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) who released a Net Zero roadmap yesterday in partnership with the UN Environment Programme. This was in recognition that travel and transportation relates to 8-10% of the greenhouse gas emissions and stating that “with more ambitious targets" some industries could reach Net zero before 2050, reports Travel Weekly. 

Grant Shapps, the Transportation Secretary has countered the call for more ambitious targets with a more empathetic tone, quoted in the Telegraph;  “There are some changes in the way we live our lives. One of those changes should not be the inability to go and visit your friends and family and do business.”

His solution to prevent this is reassuring the public that “guilt-free travel” is achievable for this country and further afield. 

The question is, without “more ambitious targets” how long will this take to achieve, and for how long should we accept that our travel is not “guilt-free”.

Supporting companies that are committed to making this a reality sooner is therefore a priority at DeepStream. Clients such as Xos Trucks, Britishvolt and other lithium battery factories placed globally are helping to drive this initiative with commitments to sustainable practices within their own supply chain, and bringing the promise of “guilt free” travel into a near term reality. 

Jose Castenada, VP of Business Development at Xos Trucks, previously commented on Facilitating the new Cleantech Industrial Energy Transition saying:

“At Xos Trucks, our mission is to build a cleaner, more sustainable world, and we’re doing so by electrifying one of the highest greenhouse gas emitters: commercial vehicles. Xos has built cost-effective, durable, zero-emission electric vehicles tailored specifically for commercial fleets.

Alongside our customers and partners, we’re proud to move the world forward toward an electric future."

The UK’s commitment to ban the sale of petrol and diesel-fuelled automobiles by 2030, and that hybrids will be banned by 2035 is not enough. It is not just the end product that needs to be more “green”, it is the whole value chain behind it that builds the final product.  

There is therefore a need to utilise clean and green technologies for internal processes to build both. This is because, as Deloitte points out, whilst two-thirds of most companies’ emissions can be offset by switching to 100% renewable electricity, the other third is tougher because it’s spread throughout the value chain. As the saying goes, every little helps, and that’s the attitude companies have been taking to ensuring their processes are ESG compliant. Nestle, is a great example of this, and as a result of recognising the amount of their emissions that derive from freight, they have developed an app to take preventive measures and make freight more efficient- resulting in a 15% reduction of emissions. 

At DeepStream we support our partners commitment to implementing sustainable practices throughout their value chain. 

Reducing emissions in the RFx process‍

In the RFx process (our shorthand for Request For anything) in particular there is a lot that can be done. As a Buyer you have the benefit of being a driver of business, and therefore the ability to hold your Suppliers accountable for their commitment to reduce emissions and to only use those that do so. An effective way to do this and to hold yourself and your company accountable is including it in your Supplier Evaluation criteria. 

We enable our partners to do this by using our flexible and customisable Evaluation feature. Our Audit trail, that logs all events on a request, ensures that your processes are as transparent as possible and that your commitment to including Supplier’s sustainability as part of your evaluation is memorialised. 

In a situation where every little counts, DeepStream’s ability to reduce the amount of time that users spend scrolling through and replying to 100s of email threads incrementally, but still tangibly, reduces the amount of energy used in tendering. Think about it, much like the straw that breaks the camel's back, if every individual in procurement used their computer 1 hour less a day (as an example), think what the overall impact would be over time- huge. 

Oystein Torlen, Director Supply Chain at Altera Infrastructure, previously commenting on  using DeepStream to implement more sustainable processes, said: 

“We have a clear goal of evaluating every single 3rd party in the RFx process. Sustainability isn’t just about energy and climate change. For us, evaluating suppliers means everything from how suppliers treat wastewater, to their industrial processes, and how they manage their supply chain. It also includes supplier’s ethical standards: do they respect human rights and have decent labour conditions? Using DeepStream, we have clear visibility, transparency and auditability throughout the supply chain, allowing us to keep our suppliers and ourselves accountable to ESG commitments”. 

DeepStream commitment

As a company, DeepStream is committed to looking to reduce our carbon footprint, and to facilitating other companies to do the same. Our clients in the EV production space are paving the way to building a sustainable future. 

A couple of our clients are also in heavy industry, which often are targeted for their carbon footprint, however, their endeavors deliver critical resources that are necessary to progress a sustainable future. For example, Lithium batteries are going to significantly reduce emissions in transportation, but Lithium has to be mined and mining has a significant carbon footprint. However, these companies are proactively taking steps to mitigate this through a number of exercises- including using DeepStream. We offer them and any other company our full support in providing a tool which reduces energy consumption and makes evaluating suppliers based on sustainability not only possible - but incredibly easy to do. 
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How do you work with reducing your carbon footprint? Are you, just like our partners and ourselves, committed to making a change? Well, then let’s talk.