09.07.2020<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By Sonja Saari, Honorary mentioned in The HUMLOG Institute\u2019s Best Thesis Award 2020 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m Sonja Saari, a recent M.Sc. graduate from Hanken School of Economics with the major subject of Supply Chain Management and Social Responsibility. In particular, I specialized in Humanitarian Logistics. When I was pondering my master\u2019s thesis topic, I realised that I have a great opportunity to combine the two research areas that interested me the most: sustainability and humanitarian logistics. As a result, I ended up studying how renewable energy sources could enhance the sustainability in emergency humanitarian medical cold chains. Being awarded an Honorary Mention at the HUMLOG Best Master Thesis Award 2020 was an extremely pleasant surprise. Especially, I would like to thank my supervisor \u00c1rni Halld\u00f3rsson for supporting me during my writing process. Below you can read my thoughts about this topic. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Renewable energy sources feasible alternatives\nto fossil ones<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In global supply chains, energy <\/strong>is\ncrucial for any operation in any node. Yet, the majority of the used energy\nsources derive from fossil fuels, therefore increasing the amount of greenhouse\ngas emissions emitted to the atmosphere. The connection between supply chain\nactivities and climate change is evident, and actions to combat global warming\nhave received increased attention among commercial sector \u2013 partly due to\nstakeholder expectations as well as regulative actions. One feasible alternative\nto mitigate environmental pressure of the energy intensive supply chains is to\nincrease the use of renewable energy sources (RES)<\/strong>, which has already been\nadvocated in the commercial side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, energy need does not stop in\ncommercial sector, but is highly needed also in humanitarian operations. In\nfact, more and more humanitarian operations are needed due to the increased\nnumber of natural disasters resulting from global warming \u2013 hence, more energy\nis needed. Yet, the sustainable perspective towards environment has not been\nthe focus by humanitarian organizations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n One particularly energy intensive supply chain\nis cold chain because of the temperature-control requirement. In humanitarian operations,\ncold chain is needed to deliver medical items to the field, hence a steady cold\nchain is needed from start to end point. Especially, in sudden onset disasters\n\u2013 man-made or natural \u2013 maintaining a cold chain is a huge challenge. How to\nensure a reliable, steady, and sustainable power chain in cases where access to\nelectricity is limited if not even non-existent? The solution has mainly been\ndiesel-powered generators, but they are not environmentally sustainable, nor do\nthey promote long-term environmental benefits to the local area. Indeed,\nenvironmental aspect of sustainability has not been prioritized by humanitarian\norganizations in emergency relief operations. Would you risk saving people\nlives\u2019 over sustainability? <\/p>\n\n\n\n RES an entry point to long-term sustainability <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n This dilemma was the core of my master thesis\ntopic. As RES has been seen to offer a feasible alternative in commercial side,\nI investigated the barriers and opportunities of increasing the use of RES in emergency\nhumanitarian medical cold chain (HMCC).<\/strong> Interestingly, the results showed\nthat environmental awareness in cold chain management is gradually increasing,\nalthough the cold chain should be first reliable and only then sustainable. RES\nin humanitarian operations has been studied and tested a little, but the focus\nhas not been in emergency operations. Nevertheless, solar energy <\/strong>was\nseen the most applicable energy source among all RES options. Yet, for widening\nthe use or RES in HMCC, technical knowledge among employees of humanitarian\norganizations should be better grasped, more resources would be needed, as well\nas more evidence from the field. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Despite the barriers, sustainable emergency medical cold chain can act as an entry point to longer-term and broader sustainability in the local area. For example, cold chain equipment and technology powered by RES could be better utilized by the local people for powering a wider area instead of merely local health facilities. In the rebuilding phase after a disaster, RES-powered equipment would be used, which would also strengthen the longer-term economic and social perspectives of the local area. Yet, more research and evidence on the reliability and practicality are needed to fully establish environmentally sustainable cold chains to help local communities to prosper after the sudden onset disaster, and to reduce the environmental pressure of the energy intensive HMCC. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Access to the thesis <\/a>here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To know more about the award, click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 09.07.2020 By Sonja Saari, Honorary mentioned in The HUMLOG Institute\u2019s Best Thesis Award 2020 I\u2019m Sonja Saari, a recent M.Sc. graduate from Hanken School of Economics with the major subject […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-projects"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/humlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/humlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/humlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/humlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/humlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=298"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/humlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":303,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/humlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298\/revisions\/303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/humlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/humlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/humlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}