On the road to sustainable supply chains

Mercado / 9 Min read / Sustainable Stories

Following the upheaval of the international supply chain as a result of trade wars, tariffs and the recent global pandemic, Mercado Labs and Ubuntu partnered together to address how businesses could build towards a smarter, more ethical and sustainable supply chain that could marry consumer demand with global supply.

Virtually everything we own is imported from somewhere outside of the country we live in. Globalisation has made the import and export of goods an everyday occurrence – one which we hardly acknowledge as we sit on our Scandi wingback chair, or sip our favourite blend of Kenyan coffee.

With this passive attitude however, has come a complacency around how products are made, both in terms of their impact on the people making them as well as the materials sourced in their manufacture.

The result has been years of malpractice that has resulted in the over-farming of natural resources and the maltreatment of those often too vulnerable to defend themselves.

Ubuntu Stories - Mercado: Creating sustainable supply chains

Mercado wanted to tackle the problem head on: by working directly with the brands we know and love to re-assess how they source, produce, and ship products to meet our growing customer demands.

The brand approached Ubuntu in its infancy to act as their Agency of Record to build out and execute a sustainable marketing strategy that would allow the brand to stand out in the market place and build towards a brighter, more conscious, supply chain future.

"Whether it's the 1.6 billion tons of food waste every year, or the fact that 30% of fashion lines end up in landfill, the global supply chain has a serious issue and it's time we owned up to it."

Ubuntu started by developing a brand identity that would instantaneously position Mercado within a crowded, repetitive market. Building on key purpose and value statements, the team then created a strategic approach to first educate, then advise supply chain brands on how they could practically readdress their approach to meeting consumer demand.

By establishing key focus areas within a wider strategic vision, we were able to create and build a multi-faceteted strategy simultaneously, establishing Mercado as a market-changing force while carving out a unique position that other brands could align with.

Mercado have seen great success to-date, onboarding a number of businesses onto the platform, helping them to reduce not only their bottom-line, but also their impact on the way they engage with suppliers and partners thousands of miles away around the world.