Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Table 4. Green Value Added Services Practices and their Classification
Clean-up of Out-
comes
Turn Outputs into
Inputs
To use Less
Substitution
Pallet and Container Pooling
X
X
X
Tracking and Tracing
X
X
Packaging Technologies and
materials
X
X
Environmental certifications
X
X
X
nology in their operations, providing phys-
ical control of its stock on a day-to-day
basis, thus avoiding product losses and im-
proving control over the flow of its goods.
•
Packaging technologies:
packaging is a
very important part of any product. One
of the main causes of product losses are
transportation damages due to inadequate
packaging. On the other hand, residuals
generated by product packaging are also
an important source of residuals. One way
of dealing with packaging issues is to in-
troduce innovative practices in packaging
technologies that help companies to mini-
mize damage in transportation at the same
time that residuals are minimized or appro-
priately discarded.
•
Environmental certifications:
environ-
mental certifications such as ISO 14000
address various aspects of environmen-
tal management. The first two standards,
ISO 14001:2004 and ISO 14004:2004,
deal with environmental management sys-
tems (EMS). ISO 14001:2004 provides
the requirements for an EMS and ISO
14004:2004 gives general EMS guidelines.
Other standards and guidelines in the fam-
ily address specific environmental aspects
include labeling, performance evaluation,
life cycle analysis, communication and au-
diting. Through these types of standards,
companies are compiling a complete set of
environmental practices, not only in their
Table 4 summarizes the value added services
practices and their classification among green
logistics strategies.
Green Logistics Practices Matrix
To summarize the practices mentioned above,
Table 5 classifies them according to their hierarchi-
cal level within the company: strategic, tactical,
or operational, depending on the implications of
each practice for the companies' performance.
As stated in the introduction of this chapter,
the implementation of green logistics is influenced
by different factors:
drivers
(increasing customer
awareness, increasing prices for raw materials
and energy, environmental legislation, pressure
from dominant actors) as well as
barriers
(cost,
lack of awareness, coordination and communica-
tion, and resistance). Depending on the “values”
of each factor, companies have different positive
as well as negative incentives to implement green
logistics practices. Two cases, which form the
end-points of a continuum, can in general be
distinguished:
•
In case of a high customer awareness and
high prices for raw materials and energy
(both refer to competitive priorities of a
company) in combination with a strong
environmental legislation and high pres-
sure from dominant supply chain actors
(both are restrictions for doing business in
a market) companies will probably cover
a wide variety of practices on all hierar-
