My name is Bill Loftis. I’ve spent 40 years developing cost-efficient supply chain strategies.
Now I’m more concerned about the climate.
Pre-human Planet Earth lived through 5 mass extinctions.
Read IPCC 2023 report and you’ll see we’re racing down the path to the 6th, and it’s only a few generations away.
As I write this (Summer 2023) the Northern Hemisphere is scorching. We are literally on fire.
As predicted. Unfortunately there’s more (and predictably worse) to come.
The question for any business is, what are you doing about it?
My take? Business success is now defined by reducing carbon and driving more profit to the bottom line.
It’s possible and you can do it. Interested in how? Traditional supply chains are one of the greatest GHG contributors and value leverage points. Get in touch
We must do this. Or else.
“When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.”
—John Muir, Nature Writings
Supply chain ecosystems and climate challenges are interconnected.
The secret to achieving sustainability and increased profitability is knitting the right capabilities together.
My role in this space is understanding how the pieces should fit for a specific business environment, and making connections to drive meaningful change.
A native North Carolinian, I’m based in Asheville, NC. Climate City. Surrounded by beautiful mountains, forests and trout streams deserving more protection.
My goal is to help reduce the supply chain environmental impact on the natural world.
Calling For More Intermodal Rail
Long haul truck transportation is a huge GHG contributor, and for decades industry has acknowledged the energy efficiency of intermodal rail.
It’s also a tremendous public good. Intermodal is 28 times safer than trucks, eliminates highway congestion, reduces highway infrastructure expense, and most of the infrastructure is already built out.
Yet with all these advantages,, intermodal is only 2% of truck-sized shipments in the US. Volumes have actually declined 15% since their 2018 peak.
At first blush this really makes no sense. How can this be?
For one thing, all the attention is on electrification, which is great for light duty return-to-base applications but long-haul applications are decades and billions of dollars away from reality. The planet needs both solutions, as quickly as possible, and intermodal conversions can happen now.
I spent the last year leading a team from a large sustainability non-profit and other technology, rail and policy experts exploring intermodal expansion.
We uncovered several disconnects in the existing intermodal ecosystem, and recommended multiple action items to expand usage by 3-4x.
Supply Chain Visibility
Isn’t it interesting that cross-functional supply chain visibility is so widely praised, yet rarely seen? My opinion: most companies aren’t prioritizing the most important part: connecting data between systems. Connecting disaggregated data is thorny stuff but it’s most certainly possible and should be a priority.
Why? Because I believe actionable visibility will remove more waste, more buildings, and more highway miles than any other concept I’ve ever seen. Ultimately it will allow us to automate and optimize the entire chain. Not to mention improve forecast accuracy.
I help companies identify the advanced capabilities and benefits they can achieve with integrated data, and introduce partners who can make it happen.