4 Steps for Managing Supply Chain Emissions
By TransVoyant Team
Governments and agencies recognize that the transportation sector is responsible for a large percentage of global carbon emissions, so they are targeting transportation-intensive industries with an increasing number of emissions regulations. To comply, companies must dedicate themselves to tracking and mitigating environmental impact, level of carbon emissions, and waste management across their supply chains.
Logistics managers at these organizations are leading the way when it comes to identifying, tracking, and managing carbon emissions. We analyzed how they do it.
A Staged Process for Supply Chain Emissions
To capture best practices for how top managers analyze and improve supply chain sustainability, we studied logistics processes at our global clients from various industries. Here are the four steps we uncovered.
Stage 1: Build a Digital Map
Many supply chain operations already have at least the beginnings of a digital map to help streamline operations and identify potential risks. An end-to-end digital map sharing real-time shipping and other logistics data allows managers to also locate critical issues, and then identify impacts, risks, and drivers of waste. A supply chain management platform with prescriptive recommendations can point toward options that minimize emissions output, enabling managers to make real-time decisions with impact.
Stage 2: Set Goals and Share Data
At this stage, supply chain managers must coordinate with compliance and executive functions to establish effective short- and long-term plans. Multiple stakeholders will want input into social and environmental sustainability goals. Managers must then identify who will require reports or line of sight to ongoing performance and updates on mitigation efforts. Once everyone has agreed on goals and how to measure them, set up alerts and other notifications for all stakeholders.
Stage 3: Make Shipping Smoother
At this stage managers will begin making decisions that affect outcomes. Relying on high-quality, harmonized, accessible data in the digital map, supply chain managers can create more efficient (i.e. lower emissions) shipping profiles. They can choose lanes to reduce the environmental impact of logistics and the risk of loss. TransVoyant’s platform automatically generates optimized recommendations, which can make decisions fast and almost seamless.
Stage 4: Orchestrate Ongoing Optimization
At this stage, optimization should be running almost on autopilot. For planning and during the shipping process, managers can constantly adjust logistics for maximum capacity in containers, for shortest routes and lowest energy modes of transportation. They can also monitor and streamline handoffs at each stage of the process.
Automated Recommendations for Emissions Data
As you can see, there are multiple ways to reduce your supply chain’s footprint. These solutions range from how you manage suppliers and shipping to what materials you use in packaging.
Operating a global business involves orchestrating numerous processes to lower energy consumption, use fewer natural resources, and decrease solid waste and emissions. Companies must examine and then automate each stage of their supply chain as much as possible to uncover efficiencies that will reduce environmental impact.
Companies involved in the production, distribution, and transportation of goods are expected to make significant strides in lowering emissions over the next few years. A predictive platform like TransVoyant’s can make that process almost automatic by measuring, analyzing, and optimizing a supply chain’s environmental impact and then suggesting the cleanest options at each stage.
Good from the Machine
TransVoyant empowers organizations who keep the world healthy and its resources in motion to make intelligent decisions, solve problems, and capitalize on opportunities today and in the future.
© 2025 TransVoyant, Inc. All rights reserved.