September 4, 2009 | Logistics
Eye on ESCA Europe: Part Two
The entertainment retailing and supply chain conference, ESCA Europe, takes place in London Sept. 23-24 with Cue Entertainment as a media partner of the event.
Bob Auger asked several of the industry executives who will be speaking at the conference to share their thoughts with Cue Supply Chain readers. In the second in the series, Edwin Van Der Meerendonk, VP European Supply Chain, Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment, says he plans to explain why “Going green has financial gains”.
“‘Green’ is not the same as ‘sustainable’. Corn-based DVD packaging may look environmentally friendly but take into account the total energy required to manufacture the product and it’s not as green as it looks,” Van Der Meerendonk says. “Sustainable business practice needs to take into account the environment (the planet), the equity (people) and the economy (profit).”
The Digital Entertainment Group Europe (DEG Europe) recently invited major home entertainment industry participants to a ‘Supply Chain Efficiencies’ workshop. The Studios, print and packaging companies and replicators, were represented, “although retailers were noticeably absent,” said Van Der Meerendonk, “and at ESCA I’ll be making the case for them to get involved.”
“The UK is ahead of the curve in the EU for Green retailing but we need to bring retailers into the discussion. DEG Europe is able and willing to contribute to initiatives and we have input that retailers may not be aware of,” he says. “In America, DEG was able to share specifics with Wal-Mart, for example, and provide the knowledge they needed and input they could use to achieve the solutions they were looking for. We are keen to do the same in Europe.”
Van Der Meerendonk says there’s resistance to enabling efficiencies by combining logistics across supply chain partners. “It’s not evident that retailers such as Carrefour have the same interest in reducing their carbon footprint as Tesco or Asda. Cutting energy costs, efficiencies in logistics, reductions in paper and packaging; these are priority benefits DEG Europe would like to discuss,” he says.
Van Der Meerendonk claims that consumers are more aware of carbon footprint issues than some companies realise. “They are forcing retailers along the green path and the industry needs to explain what it means to go green,” he says.
“The DVD or Blu-ray disc represents just a very small proportion of the total carbon footprint, when you consider the production and delivery processes. The overall supply chain is energy inefficient and a more radical approach is needed than simplistic solutions like switching to electric vehicles.”
For Van Der Meerendonk, reduced water consumption is a vital element of sustainability. “Some packaging solutions that are considered Green can require enormous amounts of water,” he said, “and if that means less water for food production, there’s a major environmental impact,” he says.
Overstocks and returns are considered an environmentally weak point in the supply chain and Van Der Meerendonk agreed the obvious answer is shipping the right quantities at the right time. “Delivering high volumes for day one is largely a marketing function. Retailers don’t want to run out of stock but it will never be 100% right, even with JIT logistics. The model needs to move towards targeting what we need at short lead times and the fix needs to be at the marketing end,” he says.
With no physical product to move around, digital delivery appears to be the ultimate green solution. Van Der Meerendonk says, “Downloads are the norm for the under 30s. The young are much less interested in physical product and e-tailers’ sales increase each year.
Conventional retailers have a great opportunity to showcase new titles for the current generation of DVD buyers but the next generation finds what it wants online. At ESCA Europe, we’ll need to discuss how we manage this change.”
Edwin Van Der Meerendonk will be speaking on the first day of the ESCA Europe 2009 event, which is organised by Futuresource Consulting at the Millennium Gloucester Hotel and Conference Centre in Kensington, London.