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Through the lens – sustainable abundance
Service( SaaS) to fuel its AI investment, in turn promoting sustainability in supply chain management.
“ At its core, AI enables end-to-end improvements across the supply chain,” she says.“ When we think about the future of AI, especially as it overlaps with sustainability, the way that I’ m thinking about it is that a lot of the optimisation that we can get from the use of AI will only accelerate the benefits from a sustainability perspective.
“ For example, we’ re able to use more intelligence in the planning process because we have a lot of customers who are doing their inventory and manufacturing planning. They need to feed in all of the data sets around different trends, weather, local preferences and holidays- and all of these variables that can be very neatly distilled using AI,” she explains.
“ I really just see it as an accelerator for the measurable impact that we can deliver to customers.”
Supply chain efficiency meets climate goals As AI becomes increasingly integral to supply chain optimisation, companies are leveraging advanced platforms like Blue Yonder to enhance efficiency and agility. However, the growing reliance on AI also raises important questions about the environmental impact of the data centres that power these systems, forcing us to consider how companies like Blue Yonder address the sustainability challenges associated with the energy demands and carbon footprint of its AI infrastructure.
“ I’ m really pleased there’ s a focus on the appropriate use of AI to match the need for its application,” Saskia says.“ Not everything needs to be generative AI, which is very energy intensive. There’ s also a lot of energy that goes into the training of these models which eventually moves into the use of them.
“ So, when I look at greener software design, I consider using smaller language models to match a very specific need – that’ s the first line of action. The second is choosing your data centre partners or cloud providers to make sure they’ re on that decarbonisation journey with you.”
The company approaches supplier relationships with clear expectations, using a structured set of environmental criteria to assess each potential partner. These questions focus on how well suppliers align with Blue Yonder’ s broader sustainability goals.
As part of this process, Blue Yonder also relies on ECO, a third-party assessment tool that evaluates suppliers through an environmental lens. This helps ensure transparency and accountability across the supply chain. The goal is not only to meet current
46 June 2025