Art of Supply Kelly Barner, Art of Procurement

Some corporations have chosen to wade into socially sensitive waters over the last few years and others have been pushed in from behind. The adoption of a social mission or set of causes at the company level does not guarantee ‘trickle down’ benefits to individual employees.  
The right to free speech is one of the most valued privileges granted in the United States. But it has limitations - something 50 (now former) Google employees discovered the hard way last month.
In this week’s episode of Art of Supply, Kelly Barner explores the legality of employee speech and social activism in corporate America:
What happened at Google to bring this topic to the forefront? What legal protections do private sector employees have? What next steps - including legal proceedings - do the terminated Googlers have in mind… and how likely are they to work? Links:
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“The first casualty of war is truth—the second is empathy. Empathy has to call for backup. The backup is in the form of radical empathy.”
-Lou Agosta, Assistant Professor of Medical Education at Ross Medical University at Saint Anthony Hospital

We have a difficult six months ahead of us. A contentious presidential election looms in the U.S., the world continues to be war-torn, and companies find themselves mired in social topics that threaten to win over one half of consumers or stakeholders while alienating the other half.
Could consciously practiced empathy make the difference between community success and fragmented failure? Perhaps.
Dr. Helen Riess is the Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and the Director of Empathy Research and Training in Psychotherapy Research group in the Department of Psychiatry at Mass General Hospital. She is also the author of a book called The Empathy Effect.
She has studied not just the power of empathy, but also the ability to monitor it neuroscientifically. Dr Riess may have found proof of something that many leaders believe… empathy is not a soft skill after all.
In this episode of the Art of Supply podcast, Kelly Barner focuses on empathy as a business strategy:
A review of Dr. Riess’ findings and what they teach us about the physical experience of empathy How empathy can not only be learned and improved over time, it can also be lost or diminished How an expanded understanding of empathy can affect our performance at work - and in life, too
Links:
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On April 9th, Rene Haas, CEO of Arm Holdings, a British semiconductor and software design company came out and made a statement about data center energy consumption that most people would find shocking.
He said, “by the end of the decade, AI data centers could consume as much as 20% to 25% of U.S. power requirements. Today that’s probably 4% or less.”
Everyone wants to talk about AI, but this reality is something we don’t discuss nearly enough. AI may be the greatest unrecognized threat to the environment today, because AI is an energy hog.
Example: It requires nearly 10 times as much energy to do an Internet search in ChatGPT as using Google. Are the added benefits or the improved experience worth it? What about at scale?
In this episode of the Art of Supply podcast, Kelly Barner takes an honest look at the very real problem of AI-driven energy consumption:
Why AI requires so much energy to operate Projections for the growth of AI usage and therefore AI energy consumption How the use of AI should change given today’s sensibilities about sustainability Links:
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“We know what matters to our employees, and we know what matters to our customers, and we know where the leadership view is. That alignment means that you make progress more easily because you’re focused on stuff that matters and that people care about.” - Gareth Hughes is the Business Services and ESG Director for Whistl
If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, as they say, what is the road to sustainability paved with? Put another way - if the road you are journeying down is lined with little more than good intentions, how can you be sure you’re traveling in the right direction?
This week’s episode of Art of Supply is the monthly interview, and it features a guest that both knows where he is headed and is armed with more than good intentions.
Gareth Hughes is the Business Services and ESG Director for Whistl, a UK based e-commerce and logistics business. They provide business mail services and eFulfillment services. His current responsibilities include procurement, property, facilities, fleet, and delivering ESG impact. 
In this conversation, Kelly Barner invites Gareth to speak candidly about how he has taken his passion for ESG and turned it into a successful and fully operational program:
Why pressure from customers to increase sustainability shouldn’t become passthrough pressure put on suppliers The need for all ESG-related projects to have an appropriate level of materiality How pushback can keep everyone on plan and even help companies outperform expectations
Links:
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Heavy-duty trucks include tractor-trailers, ambulances, garbage trucks, and school buses. All of these are now on an official timeline for reduced emissions, in alignment with a new Federal mandate. 
Manufacturers of heavy-duty vehicles must reduce their overall emissions by mandated percentages according to model year, starting with their 2028 models and extending through 2032.
When the rules were released on March 29th, we heard the usual responses from the usual cast of characters. Environmental advocacy groups love it, and trucking industry associations say it is ridiculous. But will it work?
In this week’s episode of the Art of Supply podcast, Kelly Barner investigates the details of the new rules to better understand: 
The requirements, operational challenges, and worthy effort to reduce fleet emissions What manufacturers of heavy duty trucks are being asked to do by when Concerns beyond the usual noise that will have to be overcome before we can reduce the emissions output of the supply chain Links:
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80 percent of all ship-to-shore (S2S) cranes at ports in the United States - and 75 percent of all S2S cranes in the world - are made by just one company: ZPMC. 
Short for Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industries Company Limited, ZPMC is a Chinese state-owned manufacturing and engineering firm. It was founded in 1992 and quickly grew to become the largest S2S crane manufacturer in the world.
U.S.-China relations have been on shaky footing in recent times, making concerns about these cranes, and the critical role they play in major ports, a top priority in both the private and public sectors.
In this episode of the Art of Supply podcast, Kelly Barner looks at the high stakes associated with port security and why cranes are at the center of everyone’s attention:
Why the Biden Administration is concerned by the risk posed by these cranes The data management and decision-making patterns that allowed ZPMC to assume a dominant position globally What may be next… in terms of security and also in terms of new sources of supply Links:
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