The Trade Congress Logistics Focused on Sustainability

The BVL, the EHI Retail Institute, GS1, and the Brand Association used the 26th Trade Logistics Congress to bring the topic of sustainability to the forefront. The congress took place as an in-person event. Sustainability will primarily have an impact on the packaging of the future.

(Cologne/Bremen) “The topic of sustainability has come to stay,” said Thomas Fell, Managing Director of GS1 Germany, at the opening of the 26th Trade Logistics Congress, which took place on August 18 and 19, 2020, in Cologne. The importance of sustainability in logistics was highlighted by numerous speakers from companies in the logistics sector. The congress was organized by BVL, the EHI Retail Institute, GS1, and the Brand Association and was one of the first business congresses to take place as an in-person event after the pandemic-related shutdown.

Logistics has a particularly poor image regarding ecological sustainability. However, in reality, this sector, which is particularly focused on efficiency, has access to important levers – and is also using them. “We don’t want any green gimmicks,” emphasized Timothy Glaz, Head of Corporate Affairs at Werner & Mertz GmbH. In his presentation, he demonstrated how sustainable packaging concepts can be designed.

From Recycled Material to Reusable Packaging: Industry, Trade, and Logistics are Rethinking

What if, for example, product packaging were made mostly from so-called post-consumer waste, as found in the yellow bag? Glaz illustrates that this is possible by using recycled material, a granulate made from plastic waste. Technically, it is possible to produce packaging for shower gel and similar products 100 percent from recycled material. Only aesthetic deficiencies remain, which require further development of the process. Additionally, Glaz calls on politics to lower the regulatory hurdles for using recycled materials.
Regulatory issues have already been clarified and are in circulation with the reusable shipping system of memo AG. Since 2009, the provider of sustainable products for office and leisure has been optimizing this system. Customers can receive a reusable box as packaging for their order upon request. After removing the contents, they return it to the cycle. To be more ecologically friendly than a conventional shipping box, such a box must be in circulation 55 times.

The savings from reducing plastic packaging are not only ecologically sustainable but also make economic sense, as Olaf Dechow from the Otto Group points out. He refers, among other things, to the EU plastic tax that will come into effect on January 1, 2021.

From the Middle to the Last Mile: Alternative Concepts are Booming

At various points in the supply chains, logisticians have many levers for more sustainable business practices – for example, in the sorting centers on the middle mile. To optimize the utilization of transport vehicles that are sent from there to the last mile in cities and to the end customer, Andreas Marschner, Vice President EU Transportation Services at Amazon, advocates for pre-sorting and consolidated deliveries. This can reduce multiple transports to closely located destinations and thus lower traffic in the city and CO2 emissions. Another model with the same goal is the delivery of private parcel shipments to the workplace. Packages can be consolidated and delivered to a parcel box or parcel kiosk at the workplace, where employees can pick them up, relieving them of a daily problem. “This way, we can achieve 6,000 fewer trips a day,” says Björn Kleszczewski from the Düsseldorf company incharge. As is often the case, economics and ecology intertwine, as over half of logistics costs occur in the last mile, as Dr. Kai D. Kreisköther from the Aachen start-up DroidDrive explained. “But urban logistics still holds much potential. It would be a shame not to tap into that,” emphasized Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Stölzle from the University of St. Gallen.

Together for More Sustainability

“Sustainability is achievable if one dedicates oneself intensively to the topic,” Marschner from Amazon countered the skeptics. However, he admits that sustainability is also a process that cannot be optimized overnight and that – especially from a business perspective – may take some time to become profitable. To successfully become more sustainable, it is important to utilize the possibilities of digitalization and, above all, to collaborate. Collaborations, such as those between logistics providers and packaging manufacturers or manufacturers and KEP service providers, open up new, additional opportunities.

Photo: © BVL

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