Sustainabile business practices: for logistics, too

The environment: the most precious resource

Since the beginning of the 1970s, a new environmental awareness has emerged among political leaders and the general public. People have realized that sustainable business practices are indispensable over the long run and that special attention must be given to natural resources and the environment. This consciousness has taken hold in the logistics sector as well, resulting in new concepts such as combined transports or systems of circulatory flow management to address the challenges.

Recycling and the vision of circulatory flow management

In addition to considering economic and commercial interests, modern logistics also addresses environmental questions.
Since the beginning of the 1970s - particularly as a result of the Club of Rome and the first global oil crises - the limits of growth in the modern economy have been the focal point of discussions. This debate has given birth to a new consciousness among the general public and political leaders.
People have realized that it is necessary to prudently use the world’s natural resources and to employ sustainable business practices. In the process, many companies have discovered that the careful use of resources and energy is not only environmentally sensible but also particularly efficient in commercial terms.
This purpose is served by material-flow analyses in industrial production, recycling concepts for materials, and the conscious avoidance of overproduction and the resulting storage costs, among other things. Since the 1990s, "city logistics City logistics " designed to bring relief to downtown areas or the consolidation of distribution and logistic tasks with the help of freight traffic centers Freight center and combined transports Combined transport have gained popularity.
The latest developments focus on CO₂ neutral products. As part of this effort, some logistics service providers offer products in which investments equaling the amount of CO₂ emissions produced by a transport are made in environmental protection projects.
With the spread of sustainable business practices, new system-designing jobs have arisen. These systems underscore the need for professional logistics, including circulatory flow management Circulatory flow management , intelligent canalization as well as the consolidation Consolidation and optimization of the transport of people and goods.