ASPN, Action Sustainability to hold supply chain sustainability webinar

The Association of Sustainability Professionals of Nigeria (ASPN) is set to host the maiden edition of its supply chain sustainability webinar titled ‘Post-Covid-19: Reshaping Supply Chain for Sustainable Business Growth’ targeted at addressing disruptions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

While speaking about the upcoming webinar, Shaun McCarthy, founder, and CEO, Action Sustainability, emphasized that the pandemic has highlighted the need for companies to build resilience against the effects of supply chain disruptions.

Shaun maintained that companies must look towards strategic partnerships with research institutions, sustainable procurement consultants, and technology experts to create cutting-edge solutions to inspire innovations in supply chain management.

The webinar, which is in with partnership Action Sustainability – UK, and the International Network for Corporate Social Responsibility (IN-CSR), will tackle some of the more frequent disruptions experienced by industries directly caused by the pandemic, including international logistical disruptions; significant demand drop; increased cost of storage due to inventory build-up; wastage and output losses of perishable goods; significant demand surges, increased cost of distribution of products and services, reduced productivity, and storage and access restrictions.

Read also: CSR-in-Action takes on gender-based violence, empowers women in Badagry

Meanwhile, Kenneth Amaechi, a professor and the president of ASPN, asserted that the association is excited to be collaborating with Action Sustainability and IN-CSR to deliver this timely and impactful training to businesses in Nigeria.

According to him, it is a way of providing support to businesses to help them to re-shape their supply chain for enhanced resilience and sustainability.

The webinar is an exposition into the evolving models through which stakeholders in both continental and intercontinental supply chains can reshape their experiences post-COVID, from supply chain disruptions to sustainable business growth.

In a report by Accenture, 94percent of Fortune 1000 companies experienced supply chain disruptions as a result of the virus outbreak, 75percent of companies had negative or strongly negative impacts on their businesses, and 55percent made plans to downgrade their growth outlooks.

Also, an article by Olivia Montgomery, a senior content analyst for software advice, The Institute for Supply Management, said that nearly a 75percent of the companies it surveyed in late February and early March 2020 reported varying supply chain disruptions as a result of the pandemic.

These reflect the world’s current supply-chain realities. Nigeria sits at the zenith of supply chain disruptions with major losses in agriculture, manufacturing, import and export, trade, and retail among others.

This partly explains why the expected participants for the September 29th, 2021, webinar have been drawn from around the world and across different works of life, including the Nigerian business community and supply chain/procurement practitioners, to get an in-depth examination of sustainable supply-chain models from global sustainable supply chain experts and Corporate Social Responsibility managers.

Reflections from industries globally indicate that COVID-19 has signaled a drastic turn-around from ‘business-as-usual, and as such, innovative and sustainable responses to these changes are needed to set the foundation for supply-chain resilience across all industries in the world.

The pandemic has indeed offered industries an opportunity to innovate, redesign and implement supply chain resiliency in hitherto unconsidered ways. Scaling supply chains from disruption-prone mechanisms to sustainable management is therefore the solution to the world’s supply chain quagmire that COVID-19 has thrown up.