The primary focus and rationale of the proposed work programme
The UK government's Sustainable Distribution strategy document emphasises the need to define sustainability in environmental, economic and social terms. Central to this `triple bottom-line` approach are the trade-offs that have to be made between preservation of the environment, prosperity and the quality of life. Efforts have recently been made to rank a wide range of environmental improvement measures in terms of their cost effectiveness (see DTI Energy White Paper 2003). At one extreme are the so-called 'green-gold' measures which yield both environmental and economic benefits and avoid the need for cost benefit trade-offs. Such measures have already been widely applied within logistics and supply chain management, often with the support of trade associations and government. There nevertheless remains great potential both for finding new ways of cutting the economic and environmental costs of distribution and promoting wider diffusion of current best practice. The research project both assesses and helps to realise the potential for improved sustainability.
The work builds on the substantial amount of research already undertaken on many aspects of sustainable logistics, much of it undertaken by consortium partners. Some of the current research extends previous research, while others will address new topics and adopt new methodological approaches. To ensure coherence, these studies will be integrated within a single analytical framework (FRAMEWORK). This framework was originally developed for an ESRC research project in the early 1990s and has since been employed in the EU REDEFINE and SULOGTRA studies. It has been further extended and refined to embrace the various analyses that we propose to undertake.
The framework focuses on freight transport operations. Within logistics systems, after all, it is the transport function which is by far the main source of negative externalities. Transport has also been identified as the only major sector whose CO2emissions are forecast to increase over the next twenty years. The movement of freight is highly intrusive in peoples` lives and estimated to be responsible for environmental costs valued at approximately £17-18 billion per annum in the UK in 2000. Although the primary focus is on transport, full account will be taken of the inter-relationships between the movement of goods and associated activities such as inventory management, production scheduling, warehousing, materials handling and retailing. Only by adopting a broadly-based logistical perspective is it possible to assess the opportunities for reorganising the transport function as well as the operational constraints.
The framework links monetary measures of economic output to the externalities arising from freight transport operations. This relationship can be decomposed into a series of key ratios each of which converts one output value into another. The value density of products translates their monetary value into a physical mass of freight which in turn is divided between different transport modes (i.e. modal split).
The framework charts the subsequent relationships for road transport, the dominant freight mode in the UK, though similar diagrams could be compiled for other modes. The handling factor ratio converts the weight of goods into freight tonnes-lifted, allowing for the fact that, as they pass through the supply chain, products are loaded onto vehicles several times. For this reason, the handling factor can be considered a crude measure of the number of links in a supply chain. The average length of haul (which is the mean length of each link in the supply chain) converts the tonnes-lifted figure into tonne-kms. The amount of lorry traffic required to move these tonne-kms is determined by two other ratios, the average payload on laden trips and the proportion of kms run empty. The environmental impact of this lorry traffic will depend on the nature of the vehicle, its geographical location and the time of day. Some of this impact will be directly related to energy consumption and affected by fuel efficiency and emissions per litre of fuel. The framework also accommodates other externalities, such as noise, vibration, accidents and visual intrusion which are expressed as a function of vehicle kms, vehicle type, time of day and geography. The work modules investigate how we can influence most of these key ratios in a systematic way. The framework identifies the key ratios addressed by each work.
Programme and Methodology
There is no shortage of suggestions as to how freight and logistics activity could be made more sustainable. These range from technological developments such as new intermodal systems, through policy options involving fiscal changes or new systems of regulation, on to suggestions for greater localisation of economic activity. There are, however, two fundamental obstacles to the identification of the most promising avenues towards greater sustainability at present. The research programme will address these obstacles.
The first obstacle is the lack of a comprehensive inventory of data available for use in research into the sustainability of supply chain operations. The consortium has addressed this first of all by undertaking a full review of relevant previous research and by cataloguing all relevant data sources (see individual work module Literature Review Reports). A data repository is also being maintained and as a result, gaps in the availability of information are being identified systematically. An integrated approach to survey design and data collection across the various work modules allows data to be gathered in the most efficient manner and in a form whereby it can inform research across the entire programme of work.
The second obstacle is that there is no established framework through which the many and varied innovations - be they technological developments or policy initiatives - can be evaluated, and there is no toolkit of integrated methodologies for measuring their impacts on sustainability. A wide range of existing methodologies will be identified, reviewed, tested and evaluated as part of this research project. These disparate methodologies will be linked to produce a holistic and integrated toolkit for the analysis of relevant sustainability initiatives.
The work programme consists of a set of distinct but is closely related work modules. Each module addresses a particular theme of the overall programme, and each is based in one of the partner institutions, although benefiting from significant collaboration across consortium members and non-academic partners.