Sustainability and the Green Supply Chain Essay

Sustainability and the Green Supply Chain - Essay Example This can be justified with reference to the fact that contemporary organisations intend to develop green supply chain related procedure in order to sustain in this competitive landscape and thereby, preserve their leadership positioning. The notion of Green Supply Chain Management (GSCM) is often identified as the key attribute in such measures applied by contemporary organisations, fundamentally described as â€Å"the process of using environmentally friendly inputs and transforming these inputs into outputs that can be reclaimed and re-used at the end of their lifecycle thus, creating a sustainable supply chain† (Cognizant, 2008). It is worth mentioning that a sustainable supply chain is typically observed as a sole entity instead of a sequence of fragmented constituents that encompass various significant aspects such as manufacturing, procurement and distribution among others (Rushton & et. al., 2010). It can thus be apparently observed that the focus of a sustainable GSCM is to support modern organisations through increased customer value, profitability along with overall productivity and attaining superior competitive positioning over their chief business market participants (Christopher, 2012; Wisner, 2011). The major facets of a sustainable GSCM include safeguarding the environment, value creation, fostering innovation in every operational procedure of the organisation, forming as well as developing effective interrelation with every organisational member and minimising any sort of hazards that are likely to arise while performing diverse operational functions. Specially mentioning, the modern organisations tend to prioritise forming a sustainable GSCM, owing to certain significant benefits that it delivers to them in this present globalisation and technological era. These benefits are usually recognised in the form of enhanced brand image, lessened logistics, manufacturing or other related costs, optimised manufacturing procedures, expansion to n ew business markets and developed SCM process among others (Morana, 2013; Dai, 2011; Cognizant, 2008). With this concern, the essay intends to describe the imperative aspect of sustainability and green supply chain by considering a particular real organisation, which has an international profile. In this regard, BP plc has been taken into concern as the organisation. The major concerns of sustainability along with green supply chain relating to BP plc have also been described in this essay. A Brief Background of BP plc BP plc, which was formerly acknowledged as British Petroleum, is currently regarded as one of the foremost global oil and gas companies throughout the globe. The company conducts its operational functions in numerous nations, employing a substantial number of personnel that stood at nearly 85,900 during the year 2012 (BP plc, 2013). The company mainly deals with various sorts of business functions ranging from delivering fuel to customers for transportation, energy fo r light along with heat and lubricants for keeping diverse kinds of machines to petrochemical products that are used for preparing daily items (BP plc, 2013). The mission of the company is to become a worldwide leader in the respective industry. The company focuses upon maintaining certain values that are coined as one team, respect, safety, excellence and respect in order to attain its predetermined business targets (BP plc, 2013). Assessing its recent sustainable strategies, it has been recognised that BP is often regarded as one of the well-known brands, which has been operating since its commencement in the 19th century. One of the major strengths of the company can be apparently observed in terms that it