When a package from an e-commerce shopping platform arrives on the doorstep, how many of us think about where it comes from? 【小题1】 Perhaps even fewer will think about the carbon footprint produced in the whole process.

It is not merely the “last mile”—the delivery, which adds to our carbon footprints but every step: from when a product was made, all the way to when it makes it into our hands. 【小题2】. But fortunately, there are a few things we can do to lessen the blow. First and foremost is green supply chain management, which integrates (整合) eco-friendly measures into the entire supply chain process, from product design to procurement (采购), and from product delivery to end-of-life disposal (处理). 【小题3】 Rather, green supply chain management requires an integrated approach, ensuring that every activity in the supply chain is more environmentally friendly. The following are two typical examples of it.

1. Package design

When we think about a single package, the amount of tape used to secure each one might seem insignificant. 【小题4】 It turns out that narrowing the tape, from 54mm to 45mm, can make a big difference. Given the huge amount of packages, it is estimated that at least 100 million metres of tape can be reduced each year.

2. Green warehousing (储仓)

Behind an efficient operation are large, highly-automated warehouses. In some of the automated areas, robots can operate in the dark, so there is no need for lighting systems. 【小题5】 Inside the warehouses, the trend of going paperless by using electronic order slips saves a large amount of paper.

Ford is turning McDonald's coffee waste into headlights

Ford is recently including coffee chaff — coffee bean skin that comes off during the roasting process — into the plastic headlights housing (大灯外壳) used in some cars. It has asked McDonald's, which doesn't roast its own coffee, to connect it with suppliers.

In recent years, as consumers become more concerned about plastic pollution and carbon emissions, companies have made sweeping commitments to reduce their impacts on the environment. They've also been developing new, sustainable materials to build consumer products.

Traditionally, Ford uses plastic and talc (滑石粉) to make its headlights housing. The coffee version is more sustainable because it's lighter and doesn't use the talc which, as a mineral, isn't renewable. Coffee chaff, on the other hand, is widely available, and much of it goes to waste. Eventually, Ford hopes to use the material for more parts.

Ford decided to work with coffee chaff a few years ago. But it's been experimenting with organic materials for over a decade. The auto company has been using soy-based foam (泡沫) in its cushions since 2011. It also uses waste from wheat, coconut, tomato and other plants in its cars in order to help meet some of its sustainability goals, which include using more renewable materials. Once the Ford team figured out how coffee chaff could be used to build car parts, it reached out to McDonald's because of the restaurant chain's scale and its sustainability goals. Like Ford, McDonald's also wants to bring renewable and recycled materials into its products. The partnership between Ford and McDonald's is an example of how brands with different projects can work together.

“We've conventionally thought of cooperation as within the food industry,” said Lan Olson, senior director of Global Sustainability at McDonald's. “The Ford partnership can help McDonald's see what kind of larger impacts are possible, when it works with a company in another field. This is just scratching the surface of trying to understand what's possible,” Olson said.

Shared electric scooter(电动滑板车) programs have appeared in cities across the world, spreading out across sidewalks and allowing users to check them out with their phones and return them wherever they like.

The scooter programs have been controversial. Critics say they are resulting in many injuries and even deaths, and that they are becoming a new form of urban litter as they block sidewalks for pedestrians(行人). Now, a new study is introducing a new criticism targeting one of the program's main selling points ---the idea that scooters are good for the environment.

The study by researchers at North Carolina State University looks at the whole lifecycle of the vehicles---from production to disposal. Most importantly, it looks at the process of having to constantly gather and recharge the scooters. The study found that a one-mile (1.6) kilometres’ trip on an electric scooter generally produces more greenhouse gases than riding a bus.

The researchers said they decided to conduct the study after finding slogan(口号) on scooter from the company Lime saying, “your ride is carbon-free.” But that`s not the case. The scooters tend to have a short life. Some are abandoned after being broken, and there have been reports of them being thrown into rivers or canals. The producing process accounts for about half of the scooter's emissions(排放). The other half is emitted in the gathering and recharging process.

"Roughly two-thirds of the time, scooter rides generate more greenhouse gas emissions than the alternative,"the study's authors said, adding that the emissions produced by shared scooter riders are greater than car riders.

The study recommends that the programs use electric vehicles to collect the scooters--- doing so only when they are used up, reduce the distances between collection and storage points, and use more recycled materials in production in order to reduce their emissions. Requiring users to return the scooters to docks, rather than leaving them anywhere, would also greatly reduce emissions---though it would obviously reduce the scooters' convenience appeal.