Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
INTRODUCTION: BASICS OF GREEN
LOGISTICS
logistics operation that has substantial impact on
the environment. CO
2
emissions from vehicles,
aircraft and vessels generate atmospheric con-
tamination, often considered one of the main
causes of the global warming effect threatening
the world today (Berntsen & Fuglestvedt 2008).
Thus, green logistics becomes a key component
in achieving sustainable management.
The negative impact of business activities on
the ecosystem (e.g. global warming and climatic
disasters) gave rise to the formulation of various
approaches for achieving sustainable methods
of development. The Brundtland Commission
defined sustainable development as “a type of
development that satisfies the current needs
without reducing the availability and quality of
resources to allow future generations of people
to satisfy their needs (WCED 1987)”. In broad
terms, the goal of sustainable development is to
address growing concerns about environmental
issues while simultaneously responding to socio-
economic imperatives.
Companies around the world are feeling
pressure to implement green practices into their
value-creation systems. This pressure emanates
from growing environmental awareness on the
part of consumers in many countries, as well
as increasing prices for raw materials and en-
ergy, environmental legislation, and influence
exerted by dominant actors in the value chain
(Fleischmann et al. 1997, Carter & Ellram 1998,
Stock 2001, Ferguson & Browne 2001, Voigt &
Thiell 2004, Kumar & Malegeant 2006, Seuring
& Müller 2008).
The solutions that have been proposed and
applied to respond to these trends cover entire
value chains, from the reduction of raw mate-
rial consumption and industrial contamination
to cutting down on solid domestic residuals at
the end-of-life of products and their reintegra-
tion into new value creating processes. Logistics
activities encompass these processes due to the
cross-functional and cross-organizational nature
of logistics management (Wu & Dunn 1995).
There is widespread acknowledgement that
logistics significantly affect the environment,
producing the desired service on one hand and
an unavoidable negative environmental impact
Green Logistics: Drivers, Definition,
Characteristics and Scope
Green logistics consists of all activities related to
the eco-efficient management of the forward and
reverse flows of products and information between
the point of origin and the point of consumption
whose purpose is to meet or exceed customer
demand. Given this definition, green logistics is
not “new” in terms of re-inventing logistics, but it
stresses the integration of ecological goals into the
target systems of organizations and value chains
in order to provide a balanced set of total value
to customers (Carter & Rogers 2008).
Green logistics is a concept put forward in the
mid-80s (Beaman 1999) to characterize logistics
systems that employ advanced technology and
equipment to minimize environmental damage
during operations, while increasing the utiliza-
tion of resources within the systems (Rogers &
Tibben-Lembke 1998, Yanbo & Songxian 2008).
Transferring these general characteristics into ac-
tivities, the scope of green logistics encompasses
the following activity groups:
•
Transportation, e.g.:
clean vehicles, reuse
of pallets and containers, freight consolida-
tion and load optimization, standardization
of trucks' sizes, reduction of CO
2
emis-
sions, and sustainable carrier selection.
•
Warehousing, e.g.:
clean material han-
dling equipment, reconditioning and reuse
of pallets and containers, process optimi-
zation, automation of warehousing sys-
tems, minimization of inventories, facility
