Expert Panel for Green Logistics

Evaluating Emissions in Logistics Networks

LOCOM Consulting GmbH set up an expert panel for "Evaluating Emissions in Logistics Networks". Together the participants from business and academic research plan to create a fundament for planning and evaluation upon which decision-makers in logistics can base their choices for green logistics strategies.

More climate protection and less emissions – legislation and citizens call upon the logistics branch to take action. In order to efficiently exploit emission-saving potentials, decision-makers in logistics must have fundamental information about reliable emissions data.

They need transparent, detailed, and easily understood results for valid emission factors. Means of transport, vehicle types, and multi-mode solutions must all be evaluated and differentiated. One goal pursued by shippers is to allot emissions correctly to the individual shipments that caused them.

The green initiative brings representatives from business and research
together, (from left to right) Melanie Gaus, Volker Klohr (LOCOM),
and Wolfram Knörr (ifeu)

These questions were tackled by workshop participants on Sept. 22, 2008 at LOCOM in Karlsruhe. Representatives from both business and academic research found this cooperation extremely enriching and resolved to continue working on green solutions for logistics in forthcoming workshops and projects.

In this joint effort, the University of Karlsruhe (TH) is represented by the Institute for Economic Policy and Research (IWW) and the Institute for Production Technology and Logistics (IFL). Additional research panel members come from the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (ifeu) in Heidelberg, the Institute for Transport and Logistics (WU) from the Business University of Vienna, and from the Fachhochschule Oldenburg/Ostfriesland/Wilhelmshaven. The logistics company Kühne + Nagel and traffic planer PTV AG also participated in the first round of this initiative.

The Symbiosis of Ecology and Economics

In discussing the research project LogoTakt, Prof. Dr.-Ing. Furmans from IFL demonstrated that shifting traffic to the rails presents both ecological and economic potential. Dr. Liedtke from IWW supports this position, as road traffic will become more expensive in the future. Truck driver wages and fuel prices are on the rise and it can be expected that external costs will increasingly be internalized. In contrast to the previous method of scaling tolls in terms of emissions, the overall average rate per kilometer is expected to rise also. Assistant professor Dr. Riebesmeier from the business university in Vienna emphasized how difficult it is to monetarily evaluate the costs of CO2 emissions. Nevertheless, she recommends that the transport branch switch to ecology-minded strategies quickly and take advantage of the innovative push and image factor involved.

Methods for Evaluating Emissions

As a researcher working in Vienna (WU), Dr. Riebesmeier presented a Kummer table for calculating CO2 emissions in Austrian road transport that may be seen as one viable fundament for decision-making. Mr. Knörr from ifeu presented the emissions model TREMOD that provides the foundational data for emissions reports to the German federal government. This data underpins EcoTransIT, a service for forwarders that compares emissions among various carrier options for individual shipments.

LOCOM, the host and initiator of the panel and workshop, includes emission evaluation methods in its operational planning tools. Jürgen Schulz, director at LOCOM Consulting GmbH, elucidated how much data is still lacking both for logistics and for ecology. The dilemma for businesses, he says, is that governmental policies keep changing priorities. After focusing on pollutant emissions for years and setting up European-wide standards, now greenhouse gases have moved to the foreground. The difficulty of making reductions in both areas confronts businesses with a conflict of objectives to pursue.

Active Contribution to Climate Protection

The participants made an active contribution to reducing CO2 by planting a linden tree together with Karlsruhe’s mayor Klaus Stapf. When mature, this tree’s 30,000 leaves will daily convert enough CO2 into oxygen for 10 people to breathe.