Green's environmental shadings set the tone in many sessions of last month's annual conference of the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals. In one session, moderated by Modern, attendees from varied backgrounds picked each other's brains about the implications of environmental mandates and opportunities.

One, representing a third-party logistics provider, said she's already seeing requests for proposal asking what carriers are doing from an environmental standpoint. “Although [this trend] is not widespread yet, it's coming,” she said.

Another participant representing a consulting firm is helping humanitarian aid organizations understand what's happening on the commercial side. Metrics like mileage are helping them understand how they might change their distribution networks.

“If you start working at the detail level on the ground floor and build those metrics over time, it becomes part of your business,” she said. “That will make it easier to comply with customers as they make environmental compliance part of their RFP.”

A shipping line representative said his customers are asking for ways to reduce over-packaging because not only do they have to dispose of the packaging, but they know it will end up in a landfill, where it will “have the half-life of plutonium.” Still, when it comes to mandates from customers, he's concerned they could have the opposite effect and inhibit environmental action.

“My company has enough business relationships where we know emissions per cubic foot and per ton, whether by ocean, air or truck,” he said. “We collected a ton of metrics. But the answer we get back from some customers is 'That's great but your prices are still too high.'”

By the end of the meeting all attendees agreed there's intrinsic value to being stewards of the environment and weaving those values into the corporate culture. It was also agreed that companies that are in a position to impose environmental mandates on suppliers should do so in a reasonable way—without stifling commerce and ultimately defeating their mandate's honorable purpose.