Reimagine your reverse supply chain: Minimize new 3Rs for environmental sustainability

This is an excerpt of the original article. It was written for the May-June 2023 edition of Supply Chain Management Review. The full article is available to current subscribers.

May-June 2023

If you were dropped onto this planet and landed at McCormick Place in the heart of Chicago in the middle of March, you would probably conclude that planet Earth had been overrun by robots. Everywhere you turned on the ProMat conference floor, there was a robot lifting something, putting something away, or carrying something to another location. But, despite a conference hall overrun by technology, the on-the-ground reality is a bit different. Not so long ago, commercial real estate firm Prologis estimated the number of facilities with any type of automation at about 10%. But that is changing—quickly. A recent report from JLL found that one-in-two…

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Reduce, reuse, recycle. These 3Rs are commonly known steps toward waste management and environmental sustainability. However, they are not adequate toward countering the increasing amounts of waste generated by complex global supply chains. These 3Rs are predominantly post-mortem efforts that force a great deal of responsibility on the consumers rather than on the producers themselves.

Reverse supply chains ought to be reimagined for sustainability. We propose a design framework that minimizes the new 3Rs—refuse, recall, and returns—which in turn complement the existing reduce, reuse, and recycle initiatives for effective environmental impact.

Is the status quo—maximize reduce, reuse and recycle initiatives—adequate?

Efforts to design sustainable supply chains are receiving traction globally. The status quo focuses on a post-mortem strategy built on the 3Rs—reduce, reuse, recycle.

While these are laudable sustainability efforts, they may not produce the desired results for the environment. A finding by Columbia Climate School indicated that of these 3Rs, most consumers focus on recycling initiatives. Unfortunately, many such recycled items ultimately end up in landfills and choke the environment due to contamination, unfit for further use. A similar study by the United Nations pointed out that recycling is not going to be adequate to contain the accelerating erosion of the environment. This prompts a need to transform the way we manage supply chains.

While forward supply chains are being smartly streamlined and are part of sustainability initiatives, refuse, recall, and returns are complex loops that have a very high environmental impact, but are difficult to address.

A new design approach is required.

Refuse that includes obsoletes, single-use packaging materials, plastic containers, information materials and even QR codes that get printed for tracking contribute to a significant amount of municipal waste. Per an EPA statistic, containers and packaging contribute to an astonishingly higher portion—more than a quarter—of the municipal solid waste.

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