Recycling Efforts in Trouble due to the Political Climate?


Today’s guest post is from Brian Seipel, a Procurement Consultant at Source One Management Services focused on helping corporations understand their spend profile and develop actionable strategies for cost reduction and supplier relationship management.

There are plenty of opinions when it comes to the environment on both ends of the political spectrum. You can likely find thousands of posts across the internet on the topic, were you so inclined. I promise that this post doesn’t delve into either side’s take on the planet or our stewardship of it.

So where else might a post of recycling and politics go? More to the point, how does it align with news Procurement Pros may be interested in? As it turns out, plenty of Procurement pros have a stake in the fate of our collective trash.

And in terms of America’s biggest partner in the recycling process, China, we have a problem thanks to a ban set to take effect in Q1 of 2018.

Setting the stage

A good amount of paper, corrugated, and plastic packaging products can be recycled and reused to create new packaging materials. These same materials can also be transformed into other products and, likewise, other products can be turned into packaging. Plenty of packaging procurement initiatives touch upon recycled materials.

At the heart of this recycling transformation are the organizations who purchase these recycled materials so they can be remade into valuable products. Since the early 2000’s, these organizations have been overwhelmingly found in China. In terms of American exports of bales of scrap, China is our number one partner, with these facilities importing over $5.6 billion annually in American paper, metal, and plastic scrap.

It isn’t just the US that exports recyclable scrap to China – the International Solid Waste Association reported in 2014 that 56% of the world’s scrap was exported to China. Clearly, any disruption to China’s buying habits of this scrap material will have very real effects on recycling initiatives globally. In turn, companies involved in the purchase of products made from recycled materials should keep an eye on these import-export relationships.

So what’s the problem?

Recycling isn’t easy – a lot of work needs to be done to get scrap material in shape to recycle. It takes real resources to process scrap material. The cleaner and better sorted scrap is when it arrives at a Chinese factory, the easier, faster, and more lucrative it is to convert to recycled materials. As such, it isn’t surprising that China has been more and more interested in ensuring a quality scrap product in recent years.

This demand for better scrap material, and objection to what China is calling excessively contaminated shipments, have led the country to ban a number of solid waste imports.

This could potentially have a direct impact on the availability of “virgin” materials as we move forward into the ban next year. For example, fewer sources of recycled paper products could lead to a tighter pulp supply and higher costs.

How Will the Scrap Industry Respond?

Assuming China does, in fact, move ahead with plans to ban key scrap imports, American companies are going to have to come up with a response. Several are on the table:

  1. Forego recycling, and send scrap shipments to the landfill instead.
    This is not the greatest of solutions by any means, but if companies take no steps to change behavior, this will be the natural result of a “do-nothing” stance on the problem.
  2. Fight the ban on a socio-political basis.
    From the language of the ban, to the impact the ban will have on businesses both foreign and domestic, there is certainly opportunity to challenge China’s path forward in terms of viability.
  3. Add more quality controls.
    In terms of recycling, an empty soda can is both garbage and a product. If China’s main concern is one of quality control, then steps taken to improve quality levels (in other words, ensuring a process that removes contaminates before bales of scrap are sent to China) may alleviate China’s concerns, and help move the scrap industry back on track.
  4. Further develop and strengthen alternative markets.
    Local organizations may also benefit from building some diversity into their strategies. China put a very fine point on the issue with this waste ban, but their intentions aren’t new, either. China has been increasing their scrutiny of imported scrap bales for the last several years, leading to the rejection and return shipment of subpar bales – Some American exporters have used these intervening years to plan alternative outlets for their scrap. This may include finding other countries to export to, or finding local customers for this scrap material.

The Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI) is a US-based trade association made up of organizations from 30 countries that represent the lifecycle of recycled materials; from processing to brokerage, to industrial consumers. ISRI released a nine page response to China’s ban, which provides a few key talking points – Essentially, ISRI’s opening response combines items two and three above.

The response opens by challenging the language of China’s ban, arguing that clarification is required on China’s end to better outline how the band will be enacted (ISRI suggests, of course, that China should follow guidelines developed by ISRI to achieve this goal. Simultaneously, the response calls China’s own capabilities into question in comparison to the United States’ recycling industry: “where it takes 1,150 tons of recyclable fiber to make 1,000 tons of new paper in the United States, it takes 1,300 tons of recyclable fiber to make the same 1,000 tons of new paper in China. As a result, Chinese manufacturers have come to rely on the supply of high‐quality scrap from abroad in order to stay competitive.”

Moving forward

It is too early to say what the true impact will be moving into 2018. The American scrap industry has set wheels in motion to fight the ban politically, as well as ramp up efforts to either improve scrap exports to China or find alternative destinations for the material.

One thing is certain, however. Moving forward, Procurement teams in markets that rely on recycled materials should keep their eyes open and attention focused on China’s next moves.

Thanks, Brian.

It’s Not Our Fault if Stupid Suppliers Bid Too Low But …

… it is our fault if we accept an unsustainable bid.

Over on Spend Matters UK, the public defender wrote a very thought-provoking post that asked is Procurement responsible if suppliers are stupid and bid too low?

And the doctor has to agree with the conclusion that we are not responsible for suppliers’ stupidity, only our own. And accepting any bid that is not sustainable is, generally speaking, a stupid decision, at least without a plan to make it sustainable.

In the doctor‘s view, it’s not good enough to just have contingency plans in place. If a supplier goes into bankruptcy, and publicly blames you for forcing them to accept an unsustainable contract that is bankrupting them and forcing them to lay off hundreds, or thousands, of workers, that’s not good PR. It could hurt your brand, your sales, and your chances of striking a good relationship with a new supplier who will be wary of the corporate [job] killer.

While it’s your job to find, and get, the deal that is too good to be true, you want to be sure that the deal doesn’t bankrupt the supplier, at least not until the contract runs out. So if you know the supplier will lose money as is, you need to figure out how to make sure that you figure out how to stem the bleeding sufficiently over time to prevent bankruptcy or failure.

For example, if you know, based on raw material price trends, the COGS for the product you are buying will be at least 5% more than what the vendor is quoting, have plans in place to reduce that cost as soon as the contract is signed. Either develop lean improvement plans to reduce all overheads cost as a temporary stop-gap, buy raw materials in volume on behalf of the entire supply base to lower cost, and start work on alternate designs that reduce high-cost raw material requirements if costs get too high.

If you plan ahead, you can be careful not to accept any bid that you cannot make sustainable for the supplier with at least one of the above plans. You don’t have to make the supplier profitable, although if you take the supplier beyond breakeven to profitability it may make you a customer of choice and that can have a number of benefits beyond just the unbelievably low bid you scored, but you have to be able to prevent the supplier from going bankrupt.

So don’t worry about supplier stupidity, just worry about not catching foolish fever. Then you can score big, and not suffer the fate that comes with failure in your supply chain.

Supply Market Intelligence … Harder than it Looks Part II

In yesterday’s post, we turned our attention to supply market intelligence which, as the maverick points out, is critical as much for supply risk as it is for value creation. But, as we also pointed out in yesterday’s post, despite the plethora of options, finding the intelligence you need can be difficult. All sources have strengths and weaknesses, so you need to be selective to achieve success. Where should you start?

Suppliers

      • financial statements: if the company is public, they must release a reasonably sufficient level of information for a sound financial assessment
      • customer interviews: if you really want to find out how good a supplier is at providing a product or service, ask a customer!

Internal Sources

      • performance reporting: gather all the hard metrics you can!
      • internal stakeholder interviews: any data they have is real company intelligence data

External Sources

      • price index data: and roll your own forecasting!
      • research services: which collect data relevant to your needs
      • blogs and social media: which offer unsolicited third party opinions and reviews
      • public consumption data: from government contracts and import registries which allow you to understand supply vs demand dynamics

This data will give you a mostly factual, relatively unbiased third party picture of the market and supplier performance in the market. All you need is a platform that can automatically gather, consolidate, project, and advise on it all.

Supply Market Intelligence … Harder than it Looks Part I

Building on our recent risk focus, we turn our attention to supply market intelligence which, as the maverick points out, is critical as much for supply risk as it is for value creation.

It’s critically important, but where do you find the intelligence you need? As pointed out in a Spend Matters (main site) post, there are a number of sources that might yield intelligence, including:

Suppliers

  • company websites
  • financial statements / reports
  • request for information
  • supplier interviews

Internal Sources

  • internal stakeholder interviews
  • performance reporting
  • supplier relationship management (SRM) programs

External Sources

  • news feeds and alerts
  • price index forecasts
  • blog and social media
  • peer companies
  • research services
  • advisory programs

But what’s the right source?

Consider the following downsides:

Suppliers

  • company websites display only what the supplier wants you to see
  • financial statements / reports only display high level summaries, they don’t allow you to identify high spend or high risk suppliers or categories
  • request for information only capture what you ask for, and only what the supplier shares
  • supplier interviews again only capture what you ask for, and only what the supplier representative shares

Internal Sources

  • internal stakeholder interviews capture their expertise and bias
  • performance reporting captures hard metrics, but only what you take the time to capture
  • supplier relationship management (SRM) programs vary by company and supplier

External Sources

  • news feeds and alerts – cover the angles exposed or available to journalists
  • price index forecasts – use in-house algorithms that may or may not be right
  • blog and social media – cover the angles seen by bloggers
  • peer companies – may cover the views of the peers, or may cover the perceptions they want to pass on
  • research services – tend to provide hard data, but on the areas they cover
  • advisory programs – are limited to the expertise of the advisors

So what’s right?

There Are At Least 12 Risk Disconnects … but One You Should Never Overlook!

Over on Spend Matters Pro [membership required], the maverick is running a 12-part Pro series on The 12 Supply Risk Disconnects that Destroy Value that you really should check out. These disconnects not only increase Procurement and Supply Management risks across the board, but often end up destroy all the hard-earned value Procurement tried to extract from the sourcing event or push into the contract.

All of the risks are important, but the most critical in SI’s view is the disconnect between risk and cost. Why?

  1. Not only can one identifiable supply chain disruption not only wipe out all the savings, but increase cost beyond the current solution but
  2. Only an understanding of the true cost of risk will convince most stakeholders and executives to look beyond cost, reliability, marketing differentiation, or whatever else matters most to them. Money talks, and (potential) loss is the one thing that gets noticed.

As the maverick points out, supply risk basically overlays the dimensions of external VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity) on top of the quality value stream and you have to minimize TCO in the face of varying levels of risk. This creates the challenge of how to place a price tag on that risk and another price tag on the cost of mitigating those risks, which is driven both by the outside-in risk you face and also your current level of risk management capabilities. Which is easier said than done, but without a solid understanding of the cost of risk, and an ability to model it against the cost of a buy, you can’t truly optimize your overall total cost of ownership, of a potential buy.

But you need to, and you need to acquire an optimization-backed sourcing solution to model the true cost of each option to make risk-aware Procurement decisions. Because then, as SI pointed out in an earlier post, you can not only Define [True] Procurement Success, but enable it.