Visibility 2021 was a huge success. Held for the first time across two continents, we had a combined turnout of nearly 1,500 global supply leaders from all over the world tune in to learn how their peers are benefiting from supply chain visibility, and what FourKites has in store for the coming year.
In the midst of all of this, I noticed a single theme standing out far more clearly than it has in years past: Sustainability. While I won’t say this was particularly surprising, especially with all that’s going on in the world, I will say it was incredibly gratifying to hear so many of the world’s preeminent business leaders discussing what their companies are doing for the environment.
I’m always inspired by the quality of companies and leaders that FourKites partners with, but at last month’s Visibility user conference, I was even more pleased than usual to hear how many had prioritised climate change and sustainability within their operations. With the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) happening next week in Scotland, the coming year will prove critical for taking the steps that need to be taken to stop climate change from wreaking havoc in the coming decades.
Volvo Group is one of the world’s largest truck manufacturers. Their product portfolio consists of trucks, buses and construction equipment. Volvo Group is also one of FourKites’ strategic investors, and they have an aggressive plan for reaching net-zero. The company has said they want to have the most sustainable inbound logistics organization in the world by 2025.
Given the fact that real-time visibility is becoming a standard, it only makes sense to me that real-time visibility would be part of an electric truck.
They’re really putting their money where their mouth is. Volvo’s newest mining truck, made entirely from fossil-free steel and built in collaboration with Ovako SSAB, is clearly pushing the boundaries of traditional manufacturing. In another industry first, the company will be reusing the hydrogen created as a byproduct of producing the steel to power their green fuel cell vehicles.
But Volvo Group isn’t stopping there. At Visibility 2021, Dan Tram, an Investment Director for Volvo Group’s venture capital arm, took part in our investor supergroup panel alongside two of our other strategic investors: Qualcomm Ventures and Zebra Technologies. During his talk, Dan emphasised the role that FourKites will play in helping Volvo achieve their sustainability goals – both to better understand greenhouse gas emissions via the FourKites Sustainability Dashboard, and to optimise logistical processes to produce as little carbon as possible.
TJX Companies is another company that’s at the forefront of dealing with supply chain disruptions in a sustainable way. In a recent report, TJX stated that they reduced greenhouse gas emissions per dollar of revenue by 47% – considerably higher than their initial goal of 30% reductions overall. It just goes to show what can happen when you truly pit the resources of a major enterprise against one of the greatest challenges of our generation.
As a large, complex, international business, we work to continually make progress in our environmental stability efforts, and help mitigate our impact on the environment.
TJX focuses its sustainability efforts in four major categories: Climate and Energy; Responsible Waste Management; Chemicals Management; and Sustainable Products. At Visibility 2021, she took the stage alongside FourKites CEO Matt Elenjickal’s keynote address to discuss her company’s visibility philosophy.
So what is FourKites doing to help all of these top-tier companies in their journey to zero carbon? We covered that at Visibility 2021 as well. FourKites Chief Product Officer Priya Rajagopalan’s product roadmap keynote is consistently the most popular event of the day, both in Europe and the US. In it, she took a few minutes to outline all of the different ways that companies can use the FourKites platform to forward their sustainability initiatives.
FourKites can calculate your carbon impact based on truck type, fuel type, weight, distance traveled, and many other target metrics. It can capture and measure your total supply chain emissions, and it can benchmark that data against industry standards and offer recommendations for how to improve your sustainability posture over time.
We’re always working to improve these systems, and we’re doing so in collaboration and co-innovation with some of the biggest companies out there. Knowing that, I will be tuning into the COP26 summit with a renewed sense of optimism, knowing that people are listening, problems are being solved, and, little by little, the world is getting greener.
