Logistics businesses save billions in energy costs

Sustainability is good for the economy, according to a new report from data publishing site Ecodesk, covering case studies and interviews with Canada Post, Damco, DHL, DSV, FedEx, G4S International, Grindrod, Royal Mail, Ryder, TNT Express, UPS, USPS. The report reveals businesses could save billions of dollars annually from measuring and managing a carbon footprint.

Ecodesk has studied over 17,000 organisations, factories and facilities worldwide over five years, and from today the data is freely accessible on a new website. The aim is to encourage transparency and accuracy in carbon data reporting, which in turn stimulates new business in green tech, sustainability consulting, cost savings and business efficiency.

Ecodesk CEO Robert Clarke said there are myriad examples of companies making huge savings by undertaking a sustainability programme. In one example, DHL Express Asia-Pacific has achieved a 19% improvement in carbon efficiency year-on-year, reducing CO2 emissions by 13 million kilograms and saving EUR 10 million (AUD 13.6m) in overall energy and road vehicle fuel costs. DHL’s global sustainability programme aims to improve carbon efficiency by 30% by 2020, which will result in more savings, as well as environmental stewardship.

“If you extrapolate this single measurement/efficiency project across industries in developed countries, the cost savings run into tens of billions of dollars,” said Clarke.

Kevin Bennett, from Sustainable Supply Chain Centre – Asia Pacific said: “Deutsche Post DHL plans to improve by 30% from 2007 levels by the year 2020, by improving the efficiency of networks and facilities, transportation services.”

“Ecodesk is about helping businesses realise these savings by providing a platform for measurement guidance and publishing. We support all the most prominent standards of excellence and actively promote BSI, GRI, WRI in their efforts to provide strong measurement criteria. This is not about throw away words such as ‘green’ and ‘environmentally friendly’ – the sustainability industry has grown up and moved into hard economics. This is about having a strong business case to use sustainability to cut costs. Good environmental stewardship is a natural product of this firm foundation.”

The Ecodesk 2011 Sustainability: Transport & Logistics Reportis a thorough analysis of sustainability data and strategy, affecting the Transport & Logistics industry. The report includes a detailed analysis of 12 of the world's major T&L companies. Each company is ranked via four sustainability metrics (carbon emissions (Scope 1+2+3), carbon emissions (Scope 1 +2) energy usage and water usage) each broken down into 2 ranking permutations (gross and intensity). The report also includes exclusive interviews with sustainability managers from leading companies, including DHL, G4S and Eurostar. Each company is fully profiled, with details on sustainability strategy, employee engagement and sustainability record.

Source: http://www.tandlnews.com.au/