Maria Huge-Brodin

Understanding efficiencies behind logistics service providers' green offerings

Purpose - Awareness of environmental impacts on society is increasing among companies. In order to turn environmental problems into business opportunities, many companies are beginning to consider how environmental, or green aspects can be integrated into their service offerings. This opportunity can be of specific interest to logistics service providers, whose core business is an environmental impact in itself. The purpose of this article is to indicate where green-labelled logistics service providers are positioned today in their development, and to seek the underlying rationale in development of green service offerings. Design/methodology/approach - This article takes a logistics service providers perspective and is based on a multiple case study of six companies. The analysis is based on cross-case analysis, and empirical, as well as theoretical, pattern matching. Findings - The attitude towards a green approach differs among the case companies: while some are working towards a green integration throughout the entire business, others offer green alternatives to the original service offering. The results point to possible explanations for these differences, and include differences in range of service offerings, size, and to different management principles for green aspects. Practical implications - The article can inspire logistics service providers in their continuing work to integrate green initiatives into the company. By introducing alternative green approaches in the development of service offerings, logistics service providers can match their own business and context with alternative rationales. Originality/value - While most of the green logistics research focuses on the logistics systems characteristics, this article offers initial insights into how the integration of green aspects into logistics services can impact logistics service providers.

Environmental practices as offerings and requirements on the logistics market

The importance of environmental consideration for companies is mounting. This applies particularly well to logistics service providers (LSPs) who will have a possibility to compete by being greener than their competitors by offering services that include different green practices. As their customers play a vital role with regard to the extent to which LSPs can include environmental practices in their business, the interface between these actors is of interest. The purpose of this article is to describe and explain how environmental practices are reflected in offerings and requirements on the logistics market. A systematic literature review of what has been published on environmental practices as parts of offerings and requirements was complemented by a wider literature review. Empirical data were collected through a home page scan and a case study of four LSP–shipper dyads. With a starting point in stakeholder theory, the different data sets were analysed separately as well as combined, and similarities and differences were discussed. The findings point to differences in the way that LSPs and shippers offer and require environmental practices on their home pages and reasons for this are suggested to be due to their different types of stakeholders. Further, the environmental practices in relationships between LSP and shippers are often more relationship specific than practices on home pages. Based on the combined findings of the data sets, a classification of environmental practices as reflected in offerings and requirements on the logistics market is proposed. The article is mainly based on companies’ practices in Sweden and thereby provides a possibility to extend the research into other countries as well. By taking two perspectives, the findings from this research can have implications both for purchasing and marketing of logistic services. The paper suggests which environmental practices that LSPs and shippers can offer or require in different stages of their business relationships. Contrary to most research within green logistics, this paper takes a business perspective on environmental practices. Further, the dual perspective of LSPs and shippers taken in this paper offers novel insight into how environmental practices can be included at different stages of LSP–shipper relationships.

Greening logistics by introducing process management– a viable tool for freight transport companies going green

ABSTRACT While the usage of process management within the freight transport industry is unknown and presumed low, it has been used within other sectors as an efficient approach for dealing with and fulfilling customer demands as well as environmental requirements. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how process management can enhance a customer focused greening in the transport and logistics sector. We present a literature review of the intersections of process management, freight transport and environmental sustainability. Furthermore, we conducted a case study of how two environmentally ambitious Swedish freight transport companies use process management to enhance environmental sustainability. We found that environmentally ambitious freight transport companies do not proactively use process management, and that workshops with topical experts and practitioners can be a way for introducing process management to enhance environmental sustainability in such companies.