Purchasing has a lot of leverage to drive sustainable transformation in business relationships. For wholesale companies that deliver chemical products, raw materials and building materials to their customers, how they position themselves in terms of safety, environmental protection and responsibility in the supply chain will therefore be crucial to their business. The industry is confronted with high deposit fees, opaque supply chains and expensive storage space. Digitalization offers opportunities for needs-based and secure distribution of your products.

One challenge is standardization. Companies are increasingly working on their own electronic communication channels, which are often incompatible with those of customers and suppliers. At the same time, it is important to make your own logistics, storage and processing steps climate-neutral through energy efficiency and renewable energies. Trucks, forklifts and transport must be gradually converted to emission-free electric vehicles or hydrogen trucks.

The biggest lever in the industry lies in the product range: Distributors have the freedom to design their own product range and can gradually transform it towards green materials or solutions for sustainable applications for customers. A broad field is therefore the search for alternative chemicals and materials that support climate-neutral cycles for customers. Wholesale acts as an important source of inspiration here. Data and transparency are crucial here: Product Carbon Footprints Cradle-to-Gate, transparently displayed online per product, are just as important as information on material composition and recyclability, which enables customers themselves to develop circular applications. In times of supply chain law, distributors are the direct suppliers who are responsible to customers for analyzing and ensuring compliance with human rights in the supply chain.

The industry includes, for example, wholesale of chemicals and materials including metal, wood, building materials, old materials and fossil raw materials. Manufacturers of chemicals, metal and wood are assigned to the sectors 36 “chemical industry”, 39 “metal industry” and 2 “forestry”. Mining companies are assigned to sector 31 “raw materials industry”.