Logistics and Its Environmental Impacts

2006

In today's highly competitive environment, green logistics issues are gaining high attention. Since it is an important part of supply chain management and plays an important role in the improvement of transport system. Logistics facilitates in getting products and services as and when they are needed and desired to the customer. It serves as a major enabler of growth of trade and commerce in an economy because it is helpful in economic transactions. The American Council of Logistics Management defines logistics as " the process of planning, implementing and controlling the efficient, cost effective flow and storage of raw materials, in-process inventory, finished goods and related information from point of origin to point of consumption for the purpose of meeting the customers requirements. Contemporary technological developments have improved the cost, efficiency and reliability of freight and passenger transport systems. At the same time, the negative environmental impacts of transportation have gained wide recognition and are at the core of issues of sustainability, especially in urban areas. Since the applications of logistics are generally positive for the efficiency of transport systems, it has been suggested that logistics should be environmentally friendly, thus the concept of " green logistics ". This paper will investigate the issue of green logistics and the environmental impacts it creates. This paper analyses how logistics managers could lead the initiative in this area by incorporating environmental management principles in to their daily decision-making process so that sustainable development could be achieved.

— Logistics industry in Malaysia is rather treated as strategic industry for economic growth and one of the key industries for Third Industrial Master Plan (IMP3) in Malaysia. It is worthwhile to study the environmental sustainable logistics practices of logistics service providers and its effect on their logistics performance, particularly in road freight transportation industry. The study proposed a conceptual framework for sustainable environmental logistics practices on logistics performance, which may be customized for other industries as well.

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Naše more, 2017

Nowadays, the reduction of the harmful effect on the environment is one of the essential state-level and international challenges. The solution of this problem lies in a worldwide use of concepts and principles of sustainable development, but also in transport and logistics performance by principles and methods of green logistics. The first part of the paper presents the review of the most authoritative studies in the field of sustainable development and green logistics. The second part of the article reflects the original approach to achieving the goals of sustainable development in the operation of logistics and transport systems based on the harmonisation of economic purposes and principles of logistics with principles of sustainable development that are reached through the systematisation of reviewed methods and instruments of logistics. Sažetak U današnje vrijeme smanjenje štetnog utjecaja na okoliš predstavlja jedan od ključnih izazova na državnoj i svjetskoj razini. Rješenje ovoga problemaleži u primjeni koncepata i principa održivog razvoja diljem svijeta, ali i na organizaciji transporta i logistike u skladu s principima i metodama zelene logistike. U prvom dijelu rada iznosi se pregled najutjecajnijih istraživanja u polju održivog razvoja i zelene logistike. Drugi dio rada sadrži izvorni pristup postizanju ciljeva održivog razvoja u području sustava logistike i transporta na temelju usklađivanja ekonomskih svrha i logističkih principa s principima održivog razvoja, koje se postiže sistematizacijom proučenih metoda i logističkih instrumenata.

International Journal of Logistics Research and Applications, 2020

This study contributes to the discussion in that, the study integrates reverse logistics, closed-loop logistics, green logistics and environmental logistics in a review and presents a generic conceptual model for understanding the implementation process of environmental practices in logistics. However, little effort has been reviewed on environmental concerns in logistics such as reverse logistics, green logistics, closed-loop logistics/supply chain and environmental logistics. The 2009-2018 data was collected from the Scopus and Web of Science. The metadata analysis reveals descriptive information such as influential authors, journals, subject area, top publishing countries, most common words used in the titles etc. The content analysis reveals the development of four broad classifications of the extant literature, namely concept and theory development, drivers and barriers, presentation of optimisation models and assessment and evaluation.

EcoProduction, 2014

Logistics, 2016

Stripped to its basics, logistics is about capturing competitive advantage and creating customer value, not just optimizing costs. This fundamental value proposition cuts across micro and macro units of analysis ranging from effectively monitoring and responding to changing behavior of individual consumers, to improving supply chain management (SCM) processes of firms, to efficiently connecting enterprises across the global economy. The spreading wings of logistics research in the past two decades reflected largely the proliferation of extended enterprises, technological innovations, and transportation and telecommunications advances globally. A significant focus of logistics research in the latter quarter of the 20th century was on enhancing firm productivity and profitability, mainly through operational/tactical improvements in planning integration. But even here, scholars increasingly recognized that multi-enterprise networks were supplanting the firm as the effective competing unit [1]. The explosive growth of e-commerce in the 21st century, especially e-tailing, and the rise of smart mobile devices placed capturing and serving individual consumers as operational and research priorities. Concurrently, at the macro-level, accelerating globalization led to substantially more research interest on supply-chain disruptions and measuring logistics performance of geopolitical entities such as cities and countries as key to their trade facilitation and overall competitiveness [2]. As the analytical units of logistics research broadened, so too have the substantive topics addressed, with scholarship moving beyond traditional business issues. Contemporary environmental and social consciousness, developments in the pharmaceutical and biomedical sectors, and transformative technological innovations such as 3-D printing are generating new waves of research and substantive writings on such issues as green logistics, disaster and humanitarian logistics, bio-logistics, and alternatives to product shipping. Cool-chain, temperature-assured, and air logistics are receiving greater attention as a burgeoning worldwide middle-class desires fresh food and health-care products from wherever they are sourced. Air cargo (now accounting for 35% of the value of international trade) is simultaneously supporting globally integrated supply chains of microelectronics, fresh-cut flowers, medications, and other high-value perishables [3]. Concerns about fair trade, worker rights, depletion of fossil fuels and critical minerals, carbon emissions, and the sustainability of the entire logistics chain have come into play, shaping consumer, business, and government attitudes toward product origin, along with distance and mode of shipments. Value-influenced logistics and supply chain management are gaining significant traction as fields of research inquiry. This traction is corroborated by Wieland, Handfield and Durach who surveyed 141 leading SCM researchers requesting them to identify the topics that they believe will have the greatest impact on the field in the coming five years [4]. "Sustainability", which included ecological, economic, ethical, and social aspects, was mentioned the most frequently. When these thought leaders were asked what they believed should become important future research topics, sustainability/green issues once again ranked at the top. Two transformative developments, however, will likely have the greatest implications for future logistics research and operations. The first is cloud computing as it is influencing big data and predictive analytics, the internet of things, and machine learning. This is enabling much more detailed