The Green Corridor: Green Initiatives for Logistics

By Timothy Foote, Director Transportation & Network APAC at Asendia

Last month, I published the article “How SMEs Move Green” where I detail how smaller logistics organisations can begin putting together their path to a zero emissions future. One part of that and arguably the most impactful part of that path is to establish initiatives that will begin eliminating emissions. This is really where improvements are made, and for that reason the initiatives themselves need to be talked about and read about with experiences shared within our logistics community.

Because of my past work as a consultant, I was able to hear and study many different initiative ideas for reducing emissions. While in meetings with teams, I could really appreciate the ingenuity that people have. At the same time, you can also see the challenges that teams experience. For one thing, coming up with an idea to reduce emissions is not something that companies have traditionally focused on. That said, reducing emissions for logistics professionals should come naturally.

Logistics professionals are familiar with reducing waste. This is a prime part of our education as well as our daily work. Once a team sees that fuel emissions are nothing but “waste”, the tasks to measurement and actions will come naturally as well.

How to Make Initiatives?

Step 1: Identify Sources of Emissions

Make a list of all the sources of emissions that you feel your company is involved with. Business travel, shipping emissions, facility power, factory power usage, downstream waste that your industry makes (like single-use packaging or packing). In some cases, the output of emissions from a source is simple. For instance, the emissions from delivery vehicles is easy to identify if you directly manage the vehicles. You know how much fuel was burned from how much was purchased.

In other cases, emissions waste needs to be studied. You may know the number of kilowatts of energy used in your warehouses and facilities for instance, but you cannot see the exact amount of emissions. Some power grids are cleaner than others. Coal powered grids are more polluting than natural gas-powered grids for example. In cases like these, you may need to study more and get more specifics from your energy company.

Another area where some study will be needed is when transport vendors are used. Emissions generated by transportation vendors are known as Scope 3 emissions. If you are a service-providing logistics company, then this will be by far the largest source in your overall emissions. You may need to study the types of vehicles these vendors use so that you can get a good idea on how to calculate the emissions. Ultimately, transport emissions that you buy from vendors can be calculated using the cargo weight, vehicle type and the delivery trip distance.

Step 2: Create Initiatives

Now that you know what emissions your company is responsible for, you need actions that can be done to reduce them. This can focus on changing the activity or changing the technology from a fossil fuel burning technology to a more clean energy alternative. As an example, let me list out the initiatives I have identified for an e-commerce logistics provider:

1. Replacing jet fossil fuel with sustainable air fuel
2. Replacing ICE (internal combustion engine) delivery vans with EV (electric vehicle) running models
3. Decreasing air transportation with other modes (trucks or ships)
4. Reducing energy used in warehouses by changing to energy-efficient lighting
5. Reducing the distances for high-emission transportation with a better-designed supply chain network
6. Changing the office electricity plan to a zero-emissions plan
7. Reducing business travel for internal meetings

These are just seven examples for initiatives, there are many more. Initiatives should be measurable so that you can reach a target. This is important to use measures that can show progress even when your total business is increasing or decreasing. Take number two above as an example. Ask your delivery vendor for the percentage of deliveries done by EVs. As this delivery vendor transitions to EVs over ICE vehicles, you should expect the percentage of deliveries by EVs to increase. You can likewise make your targets to look at this percentage of that transition. This percentage shows progress whether you ship more or less at any given time frame.

Step 3: Prioritise

You can have a dozen initiatives, but likely it will only be 4 or 5 that will make up the lion’s share of your total emissions. It is wise to prioritise those for long-term measuring.  

If you are an SME and you are starting your transition journey, let me know if my advice is helpful. I would really like to know as well what novel initiatives your firm has come up with to reduce emissions. Please share any insights or experiences you have in making your targets to move green.