All of these companies are part of the recently created Lean&Green España Commission, a body officially presented today in Madrid, the aim of which is to make this initiative a framework of reference in the country by promoting collaboration between all those involved in the supply chain. José María Bonmatí, the Director General of the AECOC; Eduardo González, the Deputy General Manager of Coordination of Action to Combat Climate Change at the Spanish Climate Change Office of MAPAMA (Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, Food and the Environment); Eric Marot, the Logistics Manager at Dia España; and Javier Domínguez, the General Manager of Chep España were all present at the launch presentation.
The Deputy General Manager of Coordination of Action to Combat Climate Change has stressed that transport is a sector with high emissions and that this initiative will contribute to promoting a more sustainable transport model and meeting global objectives, which the country must tackle with a view to sustainable development and to slow climate change.
Eric Marot, the Logistics Manager at Dia España (the company chairing the Lean&Green Commission presented today) stressed that his company has always been committed to efficiency and that people are sometimes unaware that that necessarily means being responsible and sustainable. So they are strongly committed to this initiative, which they have encouraged many other companies to join.
AECOC’s coordination
AECOC, the Association of Consumer Packaged Goods Companies, will head up the project in Spain, becoming one of Lean&Green’s nine divisions in Europe. Lean&Green was created in the Netherlands in 2008 and is currently active in Belgium, Italy, Luxembourg, Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Switzerland with more than 500 certified companies.
According to data from the European Environment Agency, logistics and transport operations account for 25% of CO2 emissions in the country. Furthermore, Spain’s greenhouse gas emissions have increased by more than 50% since 1990, unlike countries such as Germany, where they have grown just 5% or Sweden, where they have actually decreased by 1.6%. In this context, being aware of the importance of improving these indicators, the companies promoting the project in Spain have made a commitment to reduce the country’s carbon footprint through traffic measurement, data analysis, innovation, collaboration and eliminating inefficiencies.
Specifically speaking, the companies involved in the project must reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by at least 20% over the next five years. They will be audited by the E&Y consultancy firm.
Continuous improvement
The Lean&Green programme is being driven by a community of companies that share their commitment to continuous improvement and are committed to efficient and sustainable transport based on a model of collaboration between all parts of the supply chain. Within the framework of this initiative, the main work areas focus on:
- Having a clear and quantifiable goal
- Collaborating with other Lean&Green companies (manufacturers, logistic operators and distributors)
- Sharing good practices
- Collaborating in other European countries
- Promoting transparency and traceability
For initial measurements, AECOC recommends using the Guide to Calculating your Carbon Footprint, developed by the association, which takes the CEN-EN 16258 standard as its main reference point. For activities not covered by that standard, the guide follows the guidelines and rounds them off with the ODETTE and CLECAT guidelines.
The Lean&Green España initiative, which was officially presented at an event attended by all the companies promoting it, is a multi-sector initiative open to any Spanish company that wants to cut the emissions from its logistic processes.
For more information:
www.aecoc.es
lean-green.eu