The Green Corridor: Dreams to Reality! – Operations Builds a Green Future

by Timothy Foote, Director Transportation & Network APAC at Asendia and Founder of Susymbio

I conduct an introductory training course for new employees to describe how operations works. I always start with a slide that shows what I feel is the main point of our operations—building dreams into reality. In the logistical services industry or in other industries like manufacturing, it is the team of operations personnel that creates and runs the processes that produce the outcomes that either our customers or our own company’s visionaries dream of achieving. It’s great stuff to be a part of, and it is the reason that I really love working with my colleagues in these roles.

This month’s theme of operationalising sustainability provides an existential challenge to operations teams all over the world. Processes after all feed on energy—energy which is still produced much of the time burning fossil fuels. In our industry, especially. 

The SWAG Example

To illustrate what “operationalising sustainability” means to me, let me share something from my work and experience as a member of Singapore Wildcat Action Group, a conservation group we affectionately call “SWAG.” One of my jobs as a volunteer is to report and advise on actions for SWAG’s sustainability program. 

As a conservation group, SWAG has always cared about the carbon footprint of its activities. The largest emissions area for SWAG is the transportation used for its citizen action anti-poaching patrol work in Malaysia. Pre-COVID, this monthly activity involved a small group of five to eight individuals flying to Kuala Lumpur from Singapore and then taking a passenger van from Kuala Lumpur to Merapoh, Malaysia. The same journey in reverse was then undertaken to get back to Singapore. 

I calculated what reductions could be made if individuals didn’t fly to Kuala Lumpur but instead travelled together by van the whole journey. The savings in emissions for a team of six was significant. Just moving from air to land for that team would yield an 86% reduction in emissions. So when COVID travel restrictions were lifted and our patrols started again in 2022, SWAG started its first van-only group to Merapoh from Singapore. It has been the default procedure ever since. 

The next emissions dream is to either have electric van services or to travel by train from Singapore to Merapoh while still meeting our time and cost requirements. We can dream about that now, but only having service providers who can help us operationalise and meet our service requirements will this dream become reality. 

Keys for Operationalising Sustainability

This example seems clear-cut enough, but the steps rely on characteristics not present in many organisations. Here is what I mean:

1. Leadership that sees reducing carbon emissions from activities as important and a vital area to address
2. Access to resources that can measure carbon emissions in different scenarios.
3. Operational creativity that provides options to see reduction impacts from different scenarios 
4. Leadership that doesn’t mind taking risks in the pursuit of making emission reductions.

I have written about leadership in past articles (check out August’s edition of Green Corridor), and no doubt without the will of the leadership to have reducing carbon emissions as a vital mission, none of the other characteristics will have an impact. 

Creative operations personnel are critical. Without operations being able to present real options for consideration, real change simply will not even have a chance to be discussed.

Keep the Dreamers Close By

My example above started because the directors of SWAG were committed to getting the carbon numbers reduced. They were also pragmatic enough to take some risk and give the van from Singapore to Merapoh a try. They are dreaming up the future, and they were driven enough to make the change. 

You may have some colleagues like this, or you may be like this yourself. In any case, people who espouse ideas to improve our environment should be the people that organisations treasure. 

Please share with me some examples where you see sustainability being operationalised in your organisation.