Sustainability and resilience

Supply chain visibility (SCV) has two dimensions. First, it is a business’s ability to understand the structure of its own supply chain from end to end. Second, it is the ability to track different goods or products in transit, giving a clear view of inventory and all activity. Visibility enables shippers to improve customer service and cost control by managing inventory in motion, providing proactive status updates, limiting disruptions and mitigating risk.

Recent supply chain disruptions have caused a debate about reshoring and nearshoring as risk mitigation strategies. Reshoring is the practice of transferring a business operation that was moved overseas back to the country from which it was originally relocated. In the EU, nearshoring initiatives are common by making investments into Eastern European countries near the border, benefitting from a common legal and market framework. The most recent development of friend-shoring, e.g., relocating to a country with a good political relationship with the business’s home country, sometimes coincides with nearshoring.

Global markets depend on various liquid fuels that require extensive logistics operations. At the same time, synthetic liquid fuels such as SAF (sustainable aviation fuel) promise greater sustainability at stable costs when compared to petroleum-based ones. Once hydrogen starts playing a bigger role in the energy economy, liquid feedstock logistics will gain more attention. However, large investments – including a transition of the current infrastructure – are required to deliver such fuels.