Logistics is a physical distribution, it is an area of high potential cost savings, improved customer satisfaction and competitive effectiveness. Following are coming under the logistic systems:
- Ware housing
- Inventory control
- Materials handling
- Order processing
- Transportation
A Definition of the study: A widely accepted definition is the one provided by the council of Supply Chain Management professionals (CSMP. Previously Council of Logistic Management. CLM) in the USA is “Logistic is the part of the supply chain process that plans, implements and controls the efficient, effective flow and storage of goods, services and related information from the point of origin to the point of consumption in order to meet customers requirement. (P 195) (Business Administration for Students and Managers. Dr. Lawerence Mensah Akwetey 2011.
Logistics is concerned with the efficient flow of raw materials of work in process inventory and of finished goods from supplier to customer.
In addition to transportation logistics entails inventory control, warehousing, materials handling, order processing and related information activities involved in the flow of products. (Regan et al 2000)
Green logistics is a traditional logistics seeks to organize forward distribution that is the transport, warehousing, Packaging and inventory management from the producer to consumer, environmental considerations opened up markets for recycling and disposal and led to the entire new subsector of reverse logistics.
The reverse distribution involves the transport of waste and movement of used materials. While the terms reverse logistics is widely used. Other names have been applied such as reverse distribution reverse flow logistics and green logistics (Byne and Deep 1993).
Freight transport provides the link in the supply chain between echelons that enable products to be available to the customer in the right place at the right time (Potter and Lalwani 2005)
Objective of the study: Review and analysis out how the logistic systems affect the environment. In the Green logistics, we have to make ensure the achievement of transport logistics compatible with the environment.
The ideas of sustainable development originate from the 1987 Brundtland report (ACE 2004) also known as our common future. This report alerted the world to the urgency of making progress toward economic development that could be sustained without depleting natural resources or harming the environment.
Example: Over recent years Ireland’s per capital have been house gas (GHG) emissions have risen to be one of the highest in Europe. This rise in emission is no small part attribute to the 165 % increase in transport emissions in the period 1990 to 2006.The focus of this study is on the development of environmentally conscious supply chains in Ireland through the studying the harmful impact that logistical activities have on the environment with this in mind the following section will define the Green or Sustainable supply chain and introduce the concept of sustainable logistics.
Supply chain management was defined by Christopher (1998) is “Supply chain management involves the management of upstream and downstream relationships with suppliers and customers to deliver superior customer value at less cost to the supply chain as a whole.
Supply chains have been shown to high contributors to the carbon footprint of most goods (van Hoek 2001) with Eyefortransportv (2008) claiming that up to 75 % of a company’s carbon footprint is derived from supply chain activities.
The Green or Sustainable supply chain is an approach which seeks to minimise a product or service’s ecological footprint (Bearing point 2008). The concept covers all the phases of a product’s life cycle from the extraction of raw materials through the design, production and distribution phases to the use of the product by consumes and their eventual disposal of same. Sustainable logistics is a key element in the development of environmentally conscious /Green supply chain design.
Green Design: Green design can be described as an approach which seeks to reduce a products environmental impact throughout its complete lifecycle through the design of the product.
Green sourcing or Green Procurement: It is where environmental criteria are included in the decision making process when sourcing products or services.
Green manufacturing: Has the goal of reducing the environmental impact of the manufacturing function in supply chains through the reduction of the environmental impact of the use of materials and energy.
Green logistics: Has the aim of meeting cost targets and customer service levels with reduced pollution from the transport, warehousing, inventory management and distribution function in the supply chain. Sustainable logistics is a key element in the development of environmentally conscious/ green supply chain design.
Reverse Logistics: It represents all operations related to the reuse of products and materials. It is vital component of green supply chains providing a means for products/materials to be returned from the user to the producer in order to be recycled, reused or reconditioned.
Logistics and the Environment
Freight transportation by road is the dominant mode of freight transport in many economies due mainly to the flexibility and speed that the movement of freight by road offers
When compared to railway, inland waterway or Sea transport (Mason and Lalwani 2004).This is particularly true for Ireland as 90 % of freight traffic occurs in the road( Ryan et al 2003).
In freight transport the burning of petrol and diesel fuels in internal combustion engines leads to the chemical by-product of Nitrous Oxide, Methane and most importantly Carbon Di Oxide.
Transport in Ireland is a major contributing factor to Ireland’s overall emissions accounting for a 20.8 % share of total emissions in 2007, 97% of which is from road transport (EPA 2008)
Aronsson (2006) highlighted major source of environmental problems have received during the last decade by transportation.
Recommendation: As highlighted by Tenekcioglu (2004) certain mode of transportation such as rail and maritime transport are considered green modes because their effects are less detrimental to the environmental to the environment. These modes produce less pollution, less noise and account for less accident.
GLOBAL WARMING
The stern (2006) report on climate change outlines that it is now widely accepted that if no action is taken on reducing GHG emissions and in particular carbon Dioxide (co2) emissions that based on current trends in the next 50 years or so 2-3 Celsius increase in global temperature can be predicted causing disastrous effects in the areas of Food sources, water, Health, Land, Environment. For example Ireland National Climate change strategy 2007- 2012 report states that continued emissions of green house gases at or above rates would result climate system over this century than those observed to date.
The department of transport Ireland (2009) estimate that over 30 % transport emissions in Ireland come from freight transport.
If atmospheric concentration of green house gas had been stabilized at 2000 levels, warming and sea level rise would continue at least until the end of this century due to the time scales associated with climate process and feedback. (Department of the Environment heritage and Local government Ireland 2007)
Effects
- A temperature increase of 0.2 Celsius per decade for the next two decades with a warming of 1.8 to 4 Celsius by 2100.
- Global average sea level rise in the ranges 18- 38 cm for the low emissions scenario and 26-59 cm for the high emissions scenario.
- It is very likely that hot extremes, heat waves and heavy precipitation events will continue to become more frequent and likely that future tropical cyclones will become more intense.
- Increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations lead to increasing acidification of the ocean.
Standards, Tools & Methodologies for sustainable supply chain management
Sustainable supply chain implementation requires standards to allow measurement of environmental impact & methodologies and support tools to allow adoption of environment practices. This provides an overview of standards, tools and methodologies for the implementation of sustainable supply chains.
Environmental Management system
EMS standards have been developed as tools to allow the management of organizations to better identify, manage and control their activities that can impact the environment.EMS standards were developed in the early 1990’s in several countries. The standards was approved by the British Standards Institution (BSI) IN 1992 and became a model for the ISO standard 14401, which was elaborated in the years 1991-1996.The European ” Eco-Management and Audit scheme( EMAS) was adopted in 1993.(EEB 2003).
ISO 14000 Specifies a set of measures to be incorporated into a company’s management system aimed at dealing with environmental aspects in a systematic way including the following major elements:
- Definition of an environmental policy including performance objectives
- Assessment of environmental aspects
- Identification of legal obligations
- Establishing an Environmental management programme.
- Definition of procedures to achieve the objectives
- Monitoring of the systems and improvement
The European EMAS scheme is based on the international standards but contains additional requirement:
- Initial environmental review.
- Independent verification
- An accreditation system for verifiers
- Validated environmental statements
- Employee involvement
Industrial carbon foot printing standards and Methodologies
A carbon footprint is “The total set of green house gas emissions caused directly and indirectly by an individual event, organisation, and product expressed as carbon Di Oxide (Carbon Trust 2007)
The British standards Institute (BSI) developed the publicly available specification (PAS) 2050 as a method for measuring the embodied GHG emission from goods and services.
Conclusion and Recommendations: Tackling waste in Freight transport.
Lean supply chain management is a technique that analyses ways to eliminate wastes in the production process thus increasing efficiency. In supply chain management Mason and Lalwani (2006) identify some hidden wastes in transport and logistics management which eventually have to be paid for by supply chain customers. These wastes includes:
- Slow vehicle turnaround times
- Low back haul levels
- Low fill rates
- Duplicated administration
- Poor fleet utilisation.
If we avoid all those things we can maintain the sustainable logistics without damage the environment or with minimum damage of the environment.
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