Carbon reduction leading to carbon neutrality by 2050 is one of the urgent missions the world has ever faced. Governments, businesses, and individuals must do what they can to prevent global warming.

Unfortunately, organisations find their efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are dwarfed by those generated by their supply chain networks. Supply chain GHG emissions are often 5.5 times higher than direct emissions. Additionally, organisations face many carbon neutrality barriers.

Common Barriers to Supply Chain Carbon Neutrality

A 2022 study identified the following barriers to carbon reduction in business.

Major Upfront Investment Costs

Reducing supply chain emissions may involve substantial costs. For instance, organisations may want to transition to electric vehicles or switch to renewable energy sources.

There is also an uncertain ROI for some sustainability measures since it is new territory. This is of particular concern to SMEs with limited capacity. Their break even time is longer, increasing investment risk.

Nonetheless, organisations can approach carbon neutrality systematically. By budgeting and committing to progressive change over the coming years, they can ease their financial burden and reach carbon reduction goals.

Furthermore, most companies can accomplish low-hanging fruit projects that consume few resources, but still move them towards their end goals.

Finally, partnering to reduce asset needs can greatly relieve financial pressure. For example, instead of buying new electric vehicles a company can partner with a carbon neutral logistics provider for their needs. Companies can partner for expertise too, instead of hiring in-house talent.

Lack of Awareness

Carbon neutrality is a relatively new concept. As a result, companies need to raise awareness along their entire supply chain.

By educating and communicating to all stakeholders they should realize that carbon neutrality is now a necessity, not an option. Businesses must work with like-minded suppliers if they are to achieve their carbon reduction goals.

Lack of Expertise

Carbon reduction requires an enormous diversity of technical expertise. Plus, businesses may feel unsure of how to proceed due to a lack prudent government policies to guide them or a roadmap laid by other companies.

Luckily, external consultants can help. They’ve worked with others that have faced the same challenges and have connections to extensive resources. They also stay on top of regulatory needs.

Resistant Mindset

The urgency of carbon reduction increases each year as we approach the 2050 deadline. Yet some companies disregard or dismiss climate change and are highly resistant to organisational transformation.

Yet, sustainable change is now a necessity for all businesses. Organisations must transform operations, policies, and practices now. They also need like-minded business partners to accelerate their efforts. Fortunately, EarlyBirds makes the process simple.

Tapping into EarlyBirds’ Carbon Reduction Expertise

EarlyBirds’ systems work. They’ve collaborated with many companies, including Zespri, a global leader in the kiwifruit industry focused on reducing their carbon footprint throughout their supply chain.

EarlyBirds helped Zespri gain strategic insights into the transformative potential of emerging technologies for kiwifruit supply chain decarbonization through several methods. First, their Ecosystem Maps provided a panoramic view of strengths, weaknesses, and collaborative prospects across diverse industry domains and emerging technologies.

Second, Zespri cited EarlyBirds’ “exceptional proficiency in identifying disruptive technologies, data science, and industry insights”.

Finally, EarlyBirds provided a “quick and easy way to find global technologies to support R&D programmes … which returned a lot of technologies that we were aware of.”

Carbon Reduction Pathways for Business

EarlyBirds realizes no two organisations are the same. Consequently, they offer a variety of methods to access a diverse range of advanced technologies and talent. All provide the following benefits:

• Increased productivity
• Improved operational efficiency
• Enhanced competitiveness
• Connections to the best Subject Matter Experts and innovators available
• Simplified process

EarlyBirds Skill Identification Program

The skill identification program offers potential solutions to organisation to find and retain the best in the current talent pool. The program is overseen by veterans in the industry with a high level of credibility and expertise that benefits all parties.

The program provides actionable data-driven recommendations fuelled by cutting-edge technologies, such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, and predictive analytics.

By doing a deep dive into the necessary skill sets, organisations can find those with technical and managerial expertise to take them to the next level.

EarlyBirds Innovation Ecosystem

Our award-winning Innovation Ecosystem allows both innovation and strategic thinking in all areas of a business, whatever the technical or business challenge or potential opportunity your organisation wants to explore.

We unite Innovators, Early Adopters and Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) to fuel rapid innovative adoption and business evolution. Early Adopters are leaders eager to identify new and disruptive technologies. They want to seize opportunities, solve business challenges, or create new products and services.

Our Ecosystem has a data pool of over 5.0 million global innovations across many industries with solutions that may already address your organisation’s challenges. Alternatively, organisations can list their challenges and request solutions from innovators.

EarlyBirds Ecosystem Maps

EarlyBirds offers Ecosystem Maps to help organizations address pressing issues. Each contains startups, scaleups, and mature companies involved in specific themes and sub-themes so organisations can plot a path towards innovation. The maps also track numerous daily and historical news and media articles from across the world.

EarlyBirds Explorer Program

The Explorer Program is tailored towards those who need innovation as a service to supplement existing innovation programs, or to conduct innovation projects when required. It is designed to speed up the process of technological innovation for the organisation as a service.

The Explorer Program includes several features including quarterly and monthly innovation days; regular webinars to help stimulate innovation in the organisation; a focus on types of innovations; a platform enterprise license; and a nominated SME for the business.

EarlyBirds Challenger Program

The Challenger Program focuses on a single organisational or technical challenge. It looks for the most relevant innovators that meet your organisational, technical, and risk requirements.

The program is run by an EarlyBirds’ Subject Matter Expert who identifies your key issues. The SME then searches the data pool to identify and curate options for further evaluation. The most suitable option is chosen and the SME drafts a roadmap of next steps, POC, trial, or implementation.

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Discover why EarlyBirds is your best solution for supply chain carbon reduction. Please register at https://earlybirds.io/ or request a consultation if you are unsure of which of our offerings best suits your needs. We use an individualized approach to ensure you find the best possible solutions.

Our experience extends to the Food Industry, Retail, Healthcare, Operations & Maintenance, Manufacturing, Finance & Insurance, Energy, Education, Cybersecurity, Sovereign Nations, the Public Sector, and many other areas.

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