In this article, Elvin Ozensoy, Group Head of Sustainability at Rubix, discusses how partnering with the right industrial distributor can actively support a manufacturer’s ESG strategy. 
By its very nature, manufacturing is a resource-intensive sector, using large amounts of energy and materials as inputs. All players in the sector are under increasing pressure to implement robust ESG strategies; whether this pressure comes from your customer base or from new government and industry regulations, the message is clear: more needs to be done.
While it’s true that many corporations are at different stages of their ESG journeys, it is fair to say that most businesses are already addressing their Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions. However, as they move to address Scope 3 – emissions from the supply chain – this presents an opportunity to assess suppliers’ wider contribution to the company’s ESG goals.
Looking at greenhouse gas emissions and beyond, it’s important to find out what your suppliers are doing to help you meet your own objectives. It’s a simple question: are your suppliers helping you move the needle, or is it time to reconsider your partnerships with a distributor with a track record of doing more?
At Rubix, we believe distributors can play a crucial role in supporting their customers’ ESG goals by ensuring supply chain transparency, leveraging digital tracking tools and nurturing partnerships aligning with environmental and social responsibility objectives. By embracing sustainable sourcing practices and building partnerships that align with their customers’ ESG goals, distributors can help businesses minimise their environmental impact, maintain ethical standards and comply with evolving regulatory requirements.
Cutting waste
Reducing waste is a key strand of ESG and your personal protective equipment (PPE) suppliers should be helping you here. While correct PPE use is essential to protect worker health and safety, it also helps businesses eliminate unnecessary waste. Installing PPE vending machines across manufacturing sites is a great opportunity to materialise wins on both fronts.
These machines give employees quick and easy access to the right PPE while helping to reduce overuse as well as encouraging them to take advantage of the full working life of a piece of PPE. In fact, data from Rubix’s customers shows a reduction of up to 60 percent in PPE consumption following the implementation of such machines.
Beyond PPE, packaging is a big contributor to waste. To combat this, your suppliers should take several steps, including investing in automated packaging machines – something we have recently deployed at one of our largest distribution centres. These machines cut cardboard boxes to fit, ensuring that your goods are packaged in a box using the minimum amount of cardboard. This also often means the boxes are smaller, enabling more packages to fit onto a delivery van, reducing each box’s carbon footprint from transport and improving overall logistics efficiency.
Modern packaging should also be recyclable, so it’s vital to look for suppliers who are eliminating the use of virgin plastic, expanding their use of FSC-certified packaging and increasing the percentage of recycled material used in their packaging. For instance, in the UK, Rubix has implemented an initiative to phase out plastic such as bubble wrap, padded envelopes, plastic tape and void airbags. We are replacing them with recycled packaging materials, including brown void paper and brown or branded paper tape. We have also installed two cardboard shredding machines in our UK national distribution centre, enabling us to shred and reuse old cardboard material as void fill.
True transparency
If you are to report on ESG accurately, you need access to data from suppliers – this relies on supply chain transparency.
Look for suppliers who go above and beyond to make purchasing more sustainable products and services easier for you. For example, Rubix has created its own sustainability mark to help customers identify solutions with a positive ESG impact.
Also, look for suppliers who are independently verified by trusted third parties. EcoVadis, a leading provider of business sustainability ratings, is a case in point. Rubix has an EcoVadis score of 78 – equivalent to a gold medal – placing us in the top three percent of companies rated globally. We also voluntarily disclose our climate approach to the non-profit organisation CDP, a globally recognised leader in environmental reporting, which gave us a B rating in 2023.
We’re also going through the science-based target verification process for our carbon emissions – a significant milestone in our climate and supplier engagement journey.
Energy efficiency
One of the ways EcoVadis has recognised us for continuing to create a positive impact is by delivering energy-saving and process-improvement initiatives. Energy is a big expense for industrial sites and a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions.
Research from the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) 2023 World Energy Outlook report found that motor-driven systems account for about 65 percent of industrial energy consumption. It stands to reason that supply chain partners who can help you optimise the performance of these energy-intensive assets are worth their weight in gold.
For example, studies have shown that up to 14 percent of manufacturing’s energy consumption is wasted due to air leaks in compressed air systems. Therefore, bringing in experts to audit and address those leaks can help customers optimise efficiency, save costs and reduce carbon emissions.
Similarly, compressors and other vital equipment, such as motors, gearboxes and pump fans, can become inefficient due to component fatigue or failure. Non-intrusive inspections such as vibration analysis and thermographic surveys can provide early warnings on these issues. Another solution, vibration analysis, enables early detection of wear and tear in rotating machinery and can even predict the time of failure, ensuring that you can schedule proactive maintenance and repair before the worst happens.
Alternatively, thermographic surveys use infrared cameras to capture differences in temperature on machinery surfaces. This can identify heat anomalies which could be a machine overheating due to component fatigue or failure or even due to electrical overloads.
The same is also true for poor lubrication. Oil and lubrication sampling services assess the condition of machinery lubricants to ensure they are still doing their job properly. A good test will look for contaminants, signs of machinery wear and chemical breakdown.
Early detection of these issues ensures that machines are running optimally, which also means they are energy efficient. From a sustainability perspective, these proactive maintenance management solutions can increase the lifespan of critical assets. This also prevents small problems from becoming costly, such as extended downtime on the production line, contaminated or faulty goods, or even a worker injury.
Digital tools
The next generation of ESG lies with digital tools, which harness AI to simplify condition monitoring. Rubix’s condition monitoring platform (CMP) is a pioneering AI-driven condition monitoring platform that works 24/7. Working with sensors, it monitors critical assets around the clock, evaluating historical data trends to spot anomalies that would otherwise go undetected. This proactive approach allows maintenance staff and management to identify issues before they can cause severe problems in the production line, which can ultimately prevent the business from haemorrhaging money due to prolonged, unplanned downtime. It also ensures that equipment is working optimally, meaning it delivers carbon savings as well as financial benefits.
One of the advantages of AI-powered systems is that they can handle massive volumes of data in real-time and learn from each new data point, meaning the longer they are in place, the better they get at detecting issues. This brings a new level of optimisation to predictive maintenance.
Platforms such as Rubix CMP can be integrated seamlessly into existing plant management software, enabling you to access all the information in one place. Alternatively, the CMP can create an early warning system that we monitor on your behalf, which will ultimately identify potential failures or repair requirements in advance. This system will then allow us to find the right solution, for example lower carbon or express delivery depending on the urgency of the situation.
Scaling up
Another ESG benefit from working with a distributor such as Rubix is scale. Instead of verifying and communicating with hundreds or sometimes thousands of suppliers, you can work with one partner who has a robust ESG management approach and brings all the ESG information and solutions together.
We work closely and continuously with our suppliers to incorporate more sustainable solutions into our product line-up. At the same time, we are expanding the use of third-party digital monitoring platforms to assess the ESG performance of our strategic suppliers.
We recently launched an ESG engagement campaign targeting our suppliers, focusing on packaging, science-based targets and low-carbon deliveries. In fact, 61 percent of the Group’s strategic suppliers by spend have already committed to or implemented science-based targets that align with our sustainability goals.
As Europe’s largest supplier of MRO products and services, we are helping accelerate energy efficiency across industrial operations. These include our work on improving efficiencies of motor-driven systems and air leak audits to reduce energy waste from compressors for our customer sites, as well as our own investments in more sustainable packaging and powering our facilities using clean, renewable energy.
Focusing on key areas such as energy efficiency, waste reduction and transparency can drive meaningful progress.
By harnessing decades of expertise and our deep, broad supplier relationships, we can support our customers in prioritising sustainable options at scale in their procurement practices.
We want to accelerate Europe’s sustainable industrial transformation. We are already making an impact by supporting our customers’ sustainability performance, but we’re not finished yet.
To find out more about how Rubix can help you achieve your ESG goals, visit www.rubix.com/sustainability/.
