經濟全球化和競爭加劇現象的出現，導致許多公司意識到在快生產和新型服務的市場上，供應鏈管理的重要性。在這份報告中,主要采用文獻綜述法分析如今企業界的兩個重要部分:供應鏈的環境管理體系(EMS)和審計系統。此外,還會對國際標準化組織(ISO)進行討論,關于逆向物流和供應鏈活動以及這個地區的可持續發展情況。

物流和供應鏈活動已給我們的生活環境造成重大影響。例如,過量的碳排放已經改變了的環境景觀,破壞了生態系統。本土森林減少和氣候也受到破壞，從而對農業和糧食生產造成影響。因此物流和運輸造成的結果引起了重大立法國家甚至是國際組織的重視。通過國際組織力拓、京都和哥本哈根會議商討后，改善環境績效的目標已設定。(Greenlogistics,2000 - 2012)。

在第二部分,將討論關于在供應鏈中審計系統的重要性和為供應鏈提供了哪一類幫助。

The emergence of the global economy and intensified competition has led many firms to recognize the importance of managing their supply chains for fast production and service innovations to the markets. In this report, I will mainly concentrate on literature on two vital parts of today's corporate world: Environmental Management System (EMS) and auditing of supply chains. Moreover, I will also going to discuss about international organisational standardisation (ISO), information about the reverse logistics and supply chain activities and the sustainable developments in this area.

Logistics and supply chain activities have been identified as having a major impact on the environment in which we all live. For example, excess carbon emission has changed the environmental landscape, by destroying the ecosystem. Indigenous forests have thinned out and changed rain patterns thus impacting farming and food production. Consequently logistics and transport have attracted significant legislation at both national and international level. Targets for improving environmental performance have been set by the international community via the Rio, Kyoto and the Copenhagen summit meetings, accessed online (Greenlogistics, 2000-2012).

And finally in the second part I will be discussing about the importance of auditing across the supply chain and what kind of benefits it is providing to the supply chain.

企業管理系統—ENTERPRISE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM (EMS)

An EMS is thus a systematic means of assisting organisations to manage the short- and long-term impacts of their products, services, and processes on the environment. If management is committed to a philosophy of sustainable developments (SD) and is prepared to be proactive in implementing appropriate programs in an era that promotes the environment as a value (Link and Naveh, 2006), an EMS should be helpful in transforming organisations and influencing stakeholder thinking towards the adoption of a "triple bottom line" (Elkington, 1997) of economic, environmental, and social sustainability.#p#分頁標題#e#

Environmental management to become an integral part of business decision-making, rather than something one has to do in reaction to regulatory or customer pressure. Consider the case of Sony, which worked with a recycler in Minnesota to collect 600Â tons of Sony products. Although Sony spent approximately 80Â cents on every pound of equipment recycled, its supply chain gained by learning to engineer materials and design components that increased the percentage of recyclable components in their products. Such proactive management of a closed-loop chain can lead to stronger engineering capability and, eventually, competitive advantage (Russo & Fouts, 1997). Hence, research has shown that enterprises are more likely to certify their practices when information asymmetries with their stakeholders (e.g., customers and suppliers) are high (Jiang and Bansal, 2003). This certification is a signal to the market that firms within the supply chain operate with recognized environmental management practices. However, it has been found that a significant portion of an ISO 14001 certification is not awarded to the best environmentally performing enterprises. Thus, the idea of 'satisfying signaling' has been proposed, where poorly performing multi-plant enterprises adopt an ISO 14001 to signal to the market that they are improving operations, but this is usually confined to well-performing units (Terlaak, 2007). Recently, some work on how signalling from the adoption of environmental management systems has changed, because green practices become more prevalent as revealed by the recent investigation (Etzion, 2009). Chinese enterprises have initiated implementation of a number of environmental practices due to motivational drivers such as exports and sales to foreign customers (Christmann and Taylor, 2001). This has competitive advantage over coming 'green barriers', by joining the World Trade Organization (WTO) has provided Chinese enterprises with additional opportunities to establish relationships with foreign enterprises further integrating them into their supply chain (Zhu and Geng, 2001). For example, Bristol-Myers Squibb, IBM and Xerox have encouraged their Chinese suppliers to develop environmental management systems in compliance with ISO 14001, while Ford, GM and Toyota have required their Chinese suppliers to be certified with ISO 14001 (GEMI, 2001). International laws in other regions such as the European Community Directives on Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) and Registration, Evaluation and Authorization of Chemicals (REACH) have led China to increase organizational efforts for product recovery.

國際標準化組織(ISO - 14001)—INTERNATIONAL STANDARDISATION ORGANISATION (ISO - 14001)

The ISO 14000 series, released in 1996 and revised in 2004, is the international standard for an Environmental Management System (EMS) published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). The series is based on the need for improved environmental quality as expressed at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 (Bansal and Bogner, 2002). An EMS provides the requirements for an organization's structure, responsibilities, practices, procedures, processes and resources for environmental management, so that a firm can reduce its negative environmental impact while improving management control ( [Bansal and Bogner, 2002] and [Bansal and Hunter, 2003]). ISO 14001 is the only specific standard for an EMS in the series, and the other designations are as follows: general guidelines on principles, systems and supporting techniques. The adoption for ISO 14001, a firm needs to meet the requirements for five main elements based on the principles of continuous improvement (Plan, Do, Check and Act): environmental policy, planning, implementation and operation, checking and corrective action, and management review. These five main elements give a firm complete overview of the how well they were doing in the past and how well the firms are doing after implementation. The ISO 14001 comprises of registration fee, initial implementation and required timely maintenance that incurred mostly in firms. ISO 14001 brings the external benefit of signaling a firm's commitment to environmental management to its external stakeholders. Indeed, a firm can gain an external competitive advantage by adopting ISO 14001. The fact that ISO 14001 is the most recognized EMS certification in the world provides a strong and well-recognized signal to stakeholders of the firm's commitment to environmental management. Indeed, some firms use ISO 14001 guidelines to develop new EMSs or adapt their environmental practices to the international standard without formal ISO 14001 certification (Rondinelli and Vastag, 2000). The ISO 14001 certification is although a legal binding but if a firm adopt it would certainly gain competitive advantage in the business process. ISO 14001 standard aims to create sustainable improvements in the practices of participating firms through the implementation and integration of appropriate environmental-management tools. The adoption and implementation of EMS in a positive way with the understanding of the firm's technological responses to the implementation of environmental management tools and integrating it with other standards by providing better opportunities can create value to the organizations. The firms are adopting ISO 14001 as this influence is leading organizations towards better business performance. ISO 14001 is purely becoming a definitive actor in incorporating the mechanisms that organizations use to improve their environmental performance, without harming business performance, which is different from previous views (Link and Naveh, 2006).#p#分頁標題#e#

可持續發展 (SD)—SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT (SD)

The term SD was defined in the Brundtland report (1987), and later extended by the World Business Council on Sustainable Development (WBCSD, 1996), to describe a new conception of corporations with respect to who they are, what they do, and how they relate to social, environmental, and political issues (Demirag et al., 2005). According to these authors, SD provides an opportunity for a variety of stakeholders and interested persons to meet and use a common language in discussing solutions to shared problems. This transparency is being driven, in part, by the rapid speed of communication via the internet and satellite television (Elkington, 1998), as well as other factors such as interoperable software and globalization of supply chains which have lead to a "flat world" (Friedman, 2005). Sharing information between the businesses through faster modes of communication channels would defiantly helps a firm in a long term manner. In discussing the significance of SD, Hart (1997) has made the point that the global nature of contemporary political and social issues now exceeds the resources, technology, and reach of any single organisation. To achieve SD in these circumstances, it will be necessary for organisations to adopt a policy of corporate social responsibility (CSR) (Zadek, 2001). According to Edvardsson et al. (2006), this requires the adoption of a philosophy of "values-based value creation," whereby the economic, social, and environmental value-creating processes of a firm are integrated on the basis of shared values and shared meanings. Moreover, as consumers, we have become hard to satisfy, to say the least. One of the areas where retailers can gain competitive advantage precisely is the returns policy, which is reverse logistics (Mollenkopf et al., 2007

(I) 價值觀基礎-V創造價值—ALUES BASED - VALUE CREATION
According to Laszlo (2003), the transformation of organisational culture to include consideration of the legitimate interests of key stakeholders has enabled the concept of sustainability to become an essential aspect of business conduct.

(II)社會可持續性— SOCIAL SUSTAINABILITY
Introducing comprehensive training programs to empower all employees and creates core competencies based on bottom - up approach. By doing this the results in terms of output becomes more efficient and the chances of errors become less in terms of real time follow of information among the employees within the organisations. The working styles in the organisation can be changed according to the experiences of the employees by actively participating and also by suggesting improvement based on their experiences.

供應鏈中的審計體系—AUDITING ACROSS SUPPLY CHAIN

Supplier audit are the important and crucial of ensuring the integrity of supply chain. The old methods were time consuming and ineffective in the long run. Today the field of supply chain is transforming by implementing efficient information communication technology systems to reduce the barriers between the organisations supply chain systems. A good supplier audit program is the cornerstone of supply chain integrity.  By acknowledging and addressing the challenges to an effective supplier audit program, companies can improve their supplier controls, while improving quality and supplier relations, and reducing costs and risk (SQA Services, 2012). Nowadays, companies are aware of the need to control supplier numbers.  However, growth of the supplier base over time and changes on the supplier side (name, location, etc.) make this increasingly very difficult - especially when managing thousands of suppliers.  There are companies which in some cases are unable to give a fair estimate of the number of their suppliers. The increasing number of the audit team's time is devoted to determining if suppliers are still an active part of the supply chain. Therefore the audit can be performed quickly without losing the extra time and cost furthermore. To maximize effectiveness and minimize redundancy, the supplier audit process should be defined, consolidated and standardized across the organization. Auditors need to be local, or at least regional to the supply base. Fast access to better supplier data is critical to eliminating wasted time.  At the very least, the supplier audit program should be based on a data system that maintains the status and results of the supplier audit program - and makes this data available to all stakeholders.  Ideally, the system will not simply be a depot for results, but integrate with supplier ERP data, and automate many of the administrative aspects of the program (notifications, reminders, monitoring of due dates, etc.)#p#分頁標題#e#

高效執行力—Effective Execution

The constantly moving parts of an effective supplier audit program must be monitored, managed, and acted upon by the program team.  Prioritization, resource management and measurement of the process help maximize the output of every audit 'event' (SQA Services, 2012).

總結—CONCLUSION

Recently, we have experienced not only a global economic disorder, but also a great emphasis on the impact global trade has on environment. It is becoming clearer that many of the environmental transport strategies, developed even just a few years ago, may have to be altered as the characteristics of the future supply chain steadily become more apparent. Adoption of EMS generates significant economic returns as well as improving economic opportunity.

The effective execution of auditing program should be carried on time; lastly the effective execution of the process cannot be gauged until it is measured.  Corrective action should be taken earliest when identified to reduce error and not let it go unattended this allows for improvement and fine-tuning. These measures greatly enhance the resource planning and management aspect of the program. Whereas adapting to the environment greatest challenge is to audit program and change supplier environment. Monitoring the suppliers closely will helpful to keep the suppliers in check. Moving forward, if companies want to benefit from competitive advantages, sustainable development, and building on a respected corporate brand, their logistics and supply chain managers should make environmentally responsible decisions supporting the overall corporate goals and objectives.