Sustainability is becoming a key word for all the organizations ranging from

governmental entities to biggest business conglomerates. Companies nowadays

are adopting the concept of a triple bottom line that aims to protect and
preserve 3 Ps: People, Planet & Profit.
These 3 Ps are closely related to logistics of a business especially manufacturing
or product based businesses. Council of Logistics Management (1991) defined
that logistics is part of the supply chain process that plans, implements, and
controls the efficient, effective forward and reverse flow and storage of goods,
services, and related information between the point of origin and the point of
consumption to meet customers requirements
(https://www.siam.org/journals/plagiary/1657.pdf). Logistics include operation of
warehouses, terminals, distribution, material handling and can be extended to
disposal as well. However, the error of confining the logistics to only
transportation is commonly made. Nevertheless, transportation forms a major
part of costs and environmental impact of logistics.
As any discussion on operation management is incomplete without numbers and
figures, lets crunch some numbers. Two sectors produced nearly two-thirds of
global CO2 emissions in 2013: electricity and heat generation, by far the largest,
which accounted for 42%, while transport accounted for 23%.

World CO2 emissions by sector

Electricity snd Heat

6% generation
3%
Transport
5%
38% Industry
Residential
26% Services
Others

21%

Carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations in the atmosphere have been increasing

significantly over the past century, compared to the pre-industrial era (about 280
parts per million, or ppm). The 2014 concentration of CO2 (397 ppm) was about
40% higher than in the mid- 1800s, with an average growth of 2 ppm/year in the
last few years. Significant increases have also occurred in levels of methane
(CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O). These emissions have resulted in global warming
and its subsequent impacts such as melting of glaciers, rising sea levels,
increased stratification of temperature and warming of ocean surface.
Even with awareness among people about adverse effects of GHG emissions,
countries are not able to rein in the emissions because GDP growth demands
increase in movement of goods and people and thus need for transportation.
However, by adopting various measures (GREEN initiatives) it is possible to make
sure that logistics has minimum impact on the environment. Green logistics as
practices and approaches to reduce the environmental footprint that
involves material
handling, waste management, packaging and transport. Benefits of
adopting green logistics can be several: Cost cutting, improved company
reputation, shorter lead times, gaining competitive advantage and
reduced impact on environment.
Serval measures are being implemented and explored by businesses to
turn GREEN in logistics. Some of those are as follows:
Fuel efficiency:
Increasing fuel efficiency of transportation vehicles can be major start to
implement eco-friendly initiatives. Using alternative fuels, eco-driving
techniques, fuel efficient engines and proper maintenance programmes
will help increase the fuel efficiency. Switching to alternative or more
efficient and eco-friendly fuels is an important aspect that is able to
increase the greenness of logistics. Advanced fuel management systems
can also be used to monitor fuel consumption. This will not only benefit
environment but also companies by reducing fuel consumption and
vehicle maintenance thus reducing costs.

Route optimization:

By minimizing the travel time through optimization of the routes

companies can reduce lead time, costs and number of vehicles
and trips required for transportation. This again will result in
decreasing emissions and impact on environment.

Use of cleaner transportation system:

Changing transportation mode can have huge impact on carbon
footprint. Typical shipping emission factors are:

Air Cargo: 0.8063 Kg of CO2 per Ton-Mile

Truck: 0.1692 Kg of CO2 per Ton-Mile
Train: 0.1048 Kg of CO2 per Ton-Mile
Sea Freight: 0.0403 Kg of CO2 per Ton-Mile

From these figures it is evident that sea freight is the most

environment friendly mode of transport. However no company
can rely completely on sea freight. But business can optimize
their routes using intermodal transportation system which leaves
minimal carbon foorprint.

Reverse logistics:
It involves logistics from point of consumption to back to point of
origin. It utilizes empty forward logistics fleets returning back to
point of origin. It saves time and costs for the company and
emissions for environment. It may not be a game changing
technique but it does help reduce carbon footprint in logistics.

Optimization in packaging:

Inefficient material handling and packaging operations result in

wastage of material. Use of latest technology and machinery in
material handling will reduce wastage and costs.

Measuring carbon emissions:

Businesses need to measure the carbon or other GHG emissions

from their logistics or transportation chain. It will help them
asses which part of chain is responsible for major part of
emissions and eliminate the bottleneck to become cleaner supply
chain.

Use of Big Data and analytics:

Companies can make use of humongous amount of data that is

generated from previous operations to identify part of supply
chain responsible for emissions and address those issues on
priority basis.

Infrastructure:

In countries like India where infrastructure like roads is not well

developed problems such as traffic, congestion arise. Better
infrastructure addressing these issues will help running of
vehicles at optimum speed and reduced level of pollution.

Policy Measures:

Government policies play huge role in logistics sector. Now

because of Indian Governments GST Act, trucks and other
transportation vehicles will be able to freely move across the
country and on the road time and idle time on the road will
decrease significantly. Government laws to control pollution and
their implementation and compliance by the organizations will go
a long way to make the logistics cleaner and greener.