Dive Brief:
- Software company Oracle plans to launch updated sustainability capabilities in its Oracle Fusion Cloud Supply Chain Management platform in the second half of 2023, Derek Gittoes, VP of supply chain management product strategy, told Supply Chain Dive.
- The updates will help users in transportation and logistics create a baseline for calculating emissions from shipping activities, and then use those calculations to help optimize future decisions, according to the vice president.
- “We want to be able to incorporate the greenhouse gas emission impact as part of that same planning, decision making logic,” Gittoes said. “So, what's the cheapest way to ship it, what's the fastest way to ship it and what's the least environmentally impacted way of shipping.”
Dive Insight:
Due to evolving standards and frameworks surrounding how to calculate carbon emissions, Oracle is working with groups like the Global Logistics Emissions Council, Gittoes told Supply Chain Dive.
While a seemingly straightforward idea, calculating emissions is quite complex, especially when multiple modes of transportation are involved in one shipment.
“So, if I ship it on this route with this type of vehicle, what would be the expected emissions, versus if I put it in a trailer and I use intermodal combination of truck and rail,” the vice president said.
Oracle’s supply chain platform can help shippers with product design, demand planning and procurement, among other things. While the platform is already equipped with some sustainability features, “it’s much more simplistic” than what the company has planned, Gittoes said.
New capabilities will allow shippers to get a better understanding of their transportation emissions based on factors beyond weight and distance traveled.
“You want to understand not just the distance traveled or the weight, but what type of vehicle was used ... some trucks are more efficient than others,” he said.
Oracle is one of the many companies focused on sustainability investments and updates as supply chain managers are increasingly tasked to measure their carbon emissions.
Gravity Climate, a tech company that helps businesses and their supply chain partners manage their carbon footprint, recently partnered with digital manufacturing marketplace Xometry to help calculate carbon emissions for Xometry order requests in real-time, according to a Feb. 1 release.
Meanwhile U.S.-based automotive manufacturer General Motors invested in energy supplier GeoPura to help scale its green hydrogen technology as more companies move away from diesel-fueled sources, according to a release last month.
