February 5, 2008

Green Logistics Consultants Group Press Release

Supply chain and logistics consultants from the USA, Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand and several European countries have joined forces to create the Green Logistics Consultants Group, an international collaborative network to accelerate the adoption and realisation of sustainable logistics strategies by corporations, local and regional authorities.

In recognition of climate change, its impact on future supply chains as well as the impact of logistics activities themselves on global warming and the local environment, supply chain consultants from eight countries worldwide have taken the initiative to form the Green Logistics Consultants Group.  According to the founders it is obvious that environmental performance indicators, the adoption of a green logistics policy and effective green logistics measures will become important aspects of total supply chain management in the near future.

Shippers and retailers as well as transport companies, logistics service providers, airport and port operators will have to integrate environmental values into their decision making processes and will have to plan for and implement sustainable logistics strategies to reduce greenhouse gases and other emissions.

"Going Green" is about more than just reducing packaging or your carbon footprint. It involves making environmentally-wise choices in supply chain design and execution, including managing the reverse supply chain to efficiently manage and remove waste. The key objective of a business is to grow shareholder value, so it would be a brave organisation that decided to do everything it could to be green irrespective of costs. However, as fuel costs rise, economic and environmental concerns will converge even more - good, old-fashioned operations management thinking is directly applicable to carbon management. As the cost base changes, projects which would have been unviable in commercial terms in the past will become justifiable.

Although recent surveys have revealed that a majority of leading companies identify the growing importance of green issues in transport and logistics processes, it also made clear that most companies have yet to adopt a sustainable supply chain strategy. Another problem is the lack of specific knowledge and of standard procedures to measure emissions from logistics activities and supply chains at corporate levels. This has resulted in a low transparency, the absence of verification, and as a consequence in a low confidence in emission reduction project assertions by companies taking worthwhile initiatives.

The partners in the Green Logistics Consultants Group will help companies, local and regional authorities to establish logistics source emission inventories, to develop sustainable logistics strategies and to realise tangible eco-efficient supply chain measures.

The group will monitor and assess environmental developments, policies and regulations of concern to its customers, develop and promote procedures, guidelines and tools to measure greenhouse gases and other emissions from transport and logistics activities and will share transport avoidance, operational and technological best practices to reduce the environmental impact of supply chains. The secretariat of the Green Logistics Consultants Group is located in Brussels.

The current partner of the Green Logistics Consultants Group in Malaysia is Logistics Consulting Asia. For more information on the Green Logistics Consultants Group, contact:

Erik van Agtmaal
Managing Partner
Phone: +32(0)2 460 17 30
E-mail: erik.van.agtmaal@greenlogisticsconsultants.com
www.greenlogisticsconsultants.com

For more information on Logistics Consulting Asia’s involvement, contact Damien Lim at damien.lim@lcalink.com.