Sustainable logistics: towards the development of environmentally conscious supply chains

There is mounting concern over the recent rise in man-made greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions which are changing the earth’s climate. This concern has resulted in increased scrutiny over GHG emitting supply chain operations. The Green or Sustainable Supply Chain is an approach which seeks to minimise a product’s ecological footprint, and is an extremely broad area of study which has identified logistics as a key determent in designing an environmentally conscious supply chain. As such, this study focuses on one aspect of sustainable supply chain design; green or sustainable logistics, and its development in Ireland. To support companies in sustainable logistics practices, new developments in standards, tools and methodologies have materialised. These developments have grown considerably in the past number of years with a number of parallel streams of work emerging. With this in mind the first aspect of this thesis is to provide the reader with an overview and analysis of these standards, methodologies and tools currently available to companies for the implementation of sustainable supply chains. At present in Ireland there is also little or no information available on the readiness of companies to adapt to more environmentally friendly behaviour in logistics and supply chain management. Therefore, the attitudes to and knowledge of sustainable logistics among companies and their preparedness to implement sustainable logistics methods are also tested using a survey. This survey showed that the link between environmental and monetary savings appears skewed by companies, who tend to assume that environmental savings only come with an increased cost to their operations. To this end, a quantitative analysis study to provide insight into the trade-off between environmental impact and cost/service levels in a supply chain was developed. This simulation model analysis was carried out on a three tier supply chain, which compared different transport strategies on environmental impact, cost and supply chain performance. This simulation study, while being case specific (electronic sector), provides insights into the trade-off between environmental impacts, cost and service level in a realistic supply chain setting.