Research Update Logistics and Supply Chain Management Research Centre (LSCM)
www.sheffield.ac.uk/lscm Transport and logistics infrastructure and mobility – the key to unlocking growth and competitiveness
Organisations benefit from the Advanced Resource Efficiency Centre
The launch of the Advanced Resource Efficiency Centre (AREC), led by PROFESSOR LENNY KOH from Sheffield University Management School, has captured the attention of organisations looking to improve their sustainable credentials, both locally and on a national scale. The University of Sheffield is a partner in the Transport Systems Catapult, launched by Business Secretary Vince Cable in June 2014. The Catapult is the UK’s technology and innovation centre for Intelligent Mobility, harnessing emerging technologies to improve the movement of people and goods around the world. The Catapult involves LSCM and CEES, as well as many other leading centres and departments in the University, industry partners, and the Sheffield City Region’s Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP). As a result of this involvement, Sheffield is now a Transport Innovation Centre (TICS) which incorporates a wide range of academics, business development staff, researchers and research students from engineering, science, and the social sciences, including Sheffield University Management School.
The Advanced Resource Efficiency Centre (AREC) has been formed as a facility to promote collaboration between industry and academics who can help introduce resource efficiency and sustainability across supply chains. It also offers a platform for access to policy makers and focuses on four main industries: advanced materials and manufacturing; energy and nuclear; water; and agritech/food. LSCM and the Centre for Energy, Environment and Sustainability (CEES) are partners in AREC. The centre will help achieve the aim of UK Government and EU policy to support an environment in which the 4.8million UK-based Small and Mediumsized Enterprises (SMEs) can flourish in a European and global context due to improvements in their supply chains. Through AREC, participating SMEs can collaborate with larger industrial partners such as Tata and Rolls-Royce, and benefit from cutting edge academic research and skills, to enable the development of resource sustainable supply chains. The AREC also provides a platform for access to policy makers in order to meet the challenge of promoting resource efficiency and sustainability across supply chains.
It is AREC’s view that long-term success lies in achieving a fair and sustainable balance between rewarding all stakeholders in a business, not just the shareholders. With this approach, customers, suppliers, employees and the community in which the business operates should benefit. ‘Green’ and sustainable organisational elements are becoming increasingly important to reputation, and investors are developing a longer-term view on their partners – if firms are seen to be neglecting these vital criteria, customers may choose to go to a competitor that is doing them well. AREC will support businesses in considering development in these areas, and will provide resources and partnerships with which to do so. Professor Koh said: “I am delighted to be leading this Centre. The calibre of our industrial and academic partnerships speaks millions about the attention and investment the University is putting into our initiative. “Sustainability and sociallyresponsible work practices are built into Sheffield University Management School’s mission statement, so my involvement and that of my Management colleagues is very relevant. This initiative sits well strategically with the specific research priority of the Faculty of Social Sciences on climate change and sustainable growth.” To find out more about AREC, visit www.sheffield.ac.uk/arec
From farm to fork – addressing supply chain challenges in the agrifood sector
Exporting SCEnAT to Europe
LSCM’s GREEN-AgriChains project aims at tackling all aspects of green supply chain management and logistics, focused on the agrifood sector. In this framework, it will deal with sustainable farming, reverse logistics, green procurement and sourcing, waste management and packaging reuse, transportation, energy consumption efficiency, green marketing, green accounting, and corporate social responsibility. This £3million project is funded by Seventh Framework Programme of the European Community (FP7).
Feeding the world’s increased population The Advanced Resource Efficiency Centre (AREC) has received Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) funding, via the University of Sheffield’s Impact, Innovation and Knowledge Exchange (IIKE) award. This project is in partnership with Hovis. The IIKE Collaborative Research & Development and Partnership Award Fund has agreed to support the ‘Interrogating Sustainability and Efficiency within the UK Wheat Supply Chain’, run as a collaboration between AREC, the Grantham Centre for Sustainable Futures and SheFF. The team includes director of LSCM, Professor David Oglethorpe Professor Lenny Koh, PROFESSOR DAVID OGLETHORPE, Richard Bruce and Liam Goucher from Sheffield University Management School, as well as Professor Peter Horton, Professor Peter Jackson and Dr Duncan Cameron.
Professor Lenny Koh
The Promoting Environmental Sustainable SMEs (PrESS) project is a multi-partner international project which is led by the University of Sheffield and funded by the European Commission’s Lifelong Learning Programme (£517,000). PROFESSOR LENNY KOH, director of LSCM, is Principal Investigator of the project. PrESS builds on Professor Koh’s SCEnAT tool, which helps business and industry understand their supply chain environmental impact and over the course of the PrESS project this tool will be developed further to improve delivery of sustainability and achieve cost reductions. ForProfessor further Lenny information, visit www.sheffield.ac.uk/scenat-press Koh