Reducing Environmental Impact via Digitization

mcs believes sustainable processes and production will soon be the industry standard, and we strive to be one of the first movers. For us, sustainability is the only way forward. We are using digitization to improve efficiency and save natural resources, while simultaneously increasing transparency and cost-savings for our clients.

Begun in a small town in Germany in 1975, mcs (media contact service) has grown from a family business to an international promotional products agency. The firm currently sources its products from hundreds of suppliers globally. As a leading partner of the International Partnership for Premiums & Gifts (IPPAG AG) joint venture initiative, mcs has access to 60 partner offices in more than 43 countries.

Sustainable supply chains save money and decrease resource use

Businesses have traditionally ordered marketing products from multiple suppliers, but mcs offers all promotional materials and print media to its clients on one easy-to-use online platform. This decreases the time needed for companies to order and design various items from multiple firms, while also eliminating excessive production, shipping, packaging, and storage that has been generated in the past. The results are twofold: Clients save money, whereas carbon emissions and the use of natural resources decrease.

IT eliminates waste in the supply chain

Many companies over-order promotional materials, only to throw much of them away after a trade fair or when it becomes outdated. According to a 2010 European Commission environmental report, in Europe, materials with a commercial value of around €5.25 billion are thrown away each year.
Using natural resources to needlessly produce items that are never used makes no sense for businesses or the planet. Luckily, mcs realized that slow and limited access to information is the root cause of this destructive trend, so the firm is now using intelligent planning and IT to reduce unnecessary waste. mcs now builds custom IT solutions via their Ziggy™ platform, so clients can access relevant information conveniently, 24 hours a day.

When mcs recently began working with a client in Switzerland, more than €2 million of unused products had to be thrown away simply because they were outdated. Sadly, this is not an isolated case. Upon switching to mcs, another new client was quickly informed that 25 percent of their stock was tied up in outdated promotional materials sitting in a warehouse. With the help of mcs’ analytics, these and other clients now only order popular, fast-moving promotional products.

Ziggy™ means lower risk, decreased costs, and less waste

At mcs the idea is not to produce more, but to produce the right amount of the right things at the right time. mcs offers an expansive full-service solution surpassing the conventional offerings of merchandisers or printers that can be integrated into any IT landscape. This user-friendly system seamlessly blends with the client’s own intranet to provide the client’s purchasing, marketing, sales, and HR departments with transparent planning, handling, and control of all marketing media. Ziggy™ further supports clients’ purchasing departments by combining demands from various branches located in multiple locations. This streamlines branding, shortens processing time, prevents overstocking, and economizes on transport. The result is an effective reduction of stock, along with simultaneously improved availability that creates less waste, saves time, and frees up budgets.

Reporting analytics offer improved transparency

mcs has found that the transparent reporting and state-of-the-art analytics provided by Ziggy™ reduce waste and uncover potential savings time and time again. This feature helps clients track their order quantities, buying patterns, and rates of product usage, which reduces waste by helping clients to only order the amount of product needed. Through reporting and consulting, mcs alerts clients about which products are performing poorly or losing popularity to reduce ordering of these “slow movers”. A positive waterfall effect occurs: Fewer natural resources are used, needless waste caused by accidental excess ordering decreases, and fewer emissions from shipping are incurred. In this way, historic overproduction of products is reduced.

Since beginning its partnership with mcs in 2011, the promotional firm’s largest account has not sent any merchandise items to landfills. “We have made our clients aware of the print items that have not moved in a long time and have given them the option to recycle these items.”

On-demand production

Capacities of Ziggy™ mean that more merchandise and print products can be created quickly on demand. Printing companies near the end-user produce materials within days, which eliminates the need to print media in advance, only to store it and ship it long distances. The end result is that costs are drastically cut and carbon emissions are immensely reduced.

Corporate social responsibility

mcs has restructured its activities to be more socially and environmentally responsible, in line with the ISO 26000 standard. The firm is also part of the Supplier Ethical Data Exchange (Sedex), the international association for ethical sourcing. In close collaboration with IPPAG AG, mcs manages its suppliers according to Social Accountability International (SAI) Social Fingerprint, an organization that promotes standards for decent work conditions.

UN Global Compact Principles and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

By creating and emphatically implementing innovative IT solutions, mcs is both supporting the UNGC Principles and furthering the efforts of the SDGs. The firm is directly adhering to UNGC Principles 7, 8, and 9, as well as SDGs 9.4 and 12.5–7 by proactively assuming responsibility to prevent environmental impacts. mcs is doing this through the development of environmentally friendly technologies and by developing initiatives and practices to advance and enhance its socio-environmental responsibility, while reducing spending, using resources responsibly, and reducing waste and the need for shipping.

The traditional idea is for companies to compete for potential clients by providing the best value for the cheapest price, but the environmental costs are often not considered. Simply put: Producing promotional products creates waste. mcs recognizes this as a problem and is taking direct action to create financial and environmental savings.