Sustainable Supply Chain Management
Transform your organization’s climate pledges into actionable strategies through better supply chain management. Modeled on our for-credit MIT course, SCM.290x provides the foundation for you to meet stakeholders’ demands for supply chain sustainability.
Course Information
Certificate Track
Learn for Free
About this Course
Demand for sustainable supply chains is on the rise. Booming growth in e-commerce, fast-shipping consumer expectations, Covid-19, and many other developments have created an ever more competitive business environment for companies from all sectors and industries. Companies face increasing pressure to become more sustainable from all stakeholders, such as policymakers, shareholders, investors, and NGOs. At the same time, consumers demand more sustainable products and services. The critical challenge for people working within organizations is becoming more sustainable while continuing to meet ambitious business goals to remain competitive in the market.
While many organizations have established goals to reduce emissions or become carbon neutral in the next 10 to 20 years, they struggle to translate these goals into specific actions and strategies. People in organizations may ask questions like:
- How do we scope the analysis of our supply chains?
- What is the proper methodology to estimate emissions?
- How do we implement actionable measurement strategies?
Whether you have a sustainability background or are new to the effort, Sustainable Supply Chain Management is an online course that will illuminate pathways for how you might build sustainable supply chains for your organization to achieve your sustainability goals while meeting—and even exceeding—business expectations.
In this course, you will study practical alternatives for optimizing carbon emissions using geospatial analysis and data analytics. Examine the "fast" and "green" delivery trade-offs in the new digital era, consumer relationships to sustainable products and services, and environmental costs of fast-shipping e-commerce. You will learn key concepts in supply chain sustainability, including supply chain carbon footprint, sustainable transportation, green vehicle routing, fleet assignment, truck consolidation, circular supply chains, sustainable sourcing, supply chain transparency, and green inventory management.
Here are some of the key questions covered in the course:
How might you…
- Identify environmental hotspots in your supply chain?
- Understand transportation's effects on supply chains?
- Implement environmental measurements into logistics decisions?
- Build a green network distribution in your supply chain?
- Design a circular supply chain?
- Build sustainable sourcing operations and green replenishment strategies?
- Leverage supply chain transparency to achieve economic, social, and environmental sustainability?
- Leverage consumer preferences into sustainable supply chain strategies?
This course combines case studies, applied projects, and business-case simulations for a dynamic, interactive learning experience.
What you'll learn
- How to estimate corporate carbon footprint and identify hot spots in the supply chain
- How to account for environmental estimations in supply chain and logistics decisions
- How to balance and trade off sustainability strategies with business performance metrics
- How to design a circular supply chain for your company.
- How to leverage consumers’ preferences and demands into sustainably supply chain strategies.
Prerequisites
None
Meet your instructors
Sreedevi Rajagopalan
Director, MIT Sustainable Supply Chain Lab
Dr. Sreedevi R is a Research Scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Center for Transportation and Logistics, affiliated with both the Low-Income Firms Transformation (LIFT) Lab and the Sustainable Supply Chain Lab. Her research with the LIFT Lab focuses on transforming business and supply chain practices among small and micro firms in emerging markets through the application of AI and technology, with the goal of improving their productivity and survival.
As part of the Sustainable Supply Chain Lab, she collaborates with large corporations to measure and manage Scope 3 emissions and promote sustainable sourcing practices. Her work supports organizations in developing data-driven strategies to reduce environmental impact and achieve sustainability goals across their supply chains.
Dr. Sreedevi brings over 15 years of combined experience in industry, academia, and research. Prior to joining MIT, she was on the faculty at the S P Jain Institute of Management and Research (SPJIMR), Mumbai, where she taught courses in Operations Management, Procurement & Strategic Sourcing, Behavioral Operations, and Quantitative Methods.
She earned her Ph.D. in Production and Operations Management from the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, with a dissertation focused on supply chain risk management. Her doctoral research was recognized as a finalist for the Emerging Economies Doctoral Student Award at the 27th Annual Conference of the Production and Operations Management Society (POMS) in Orlando, USA. Dr. Sreedevi is actively engaged in academic service and professional organizations and is committed to advancing inclusive and sustainable practices in global supply chains.
