Skip to content
Search AI Powered

Latest Stories

big picture

Sustainability begins, but doesn't end, at home

Truly sustainable business practices require getting it right inside the walls of the factory or DC here at home—and doing business with only those who do the same.

We have two stories in our September issue that touch on the issue of business sustainability.

Susan Lacefield, a staff writer for DC Velocity, takes a look at reusable packaging and offers guidelines on what to consider in deciding whether to incorporate reusable packaging in a distribution environment. In her article, she discusses the benefits and potential drawbacks of doing so, and outlines steps to take to ensure a program is sucessful.


She points out, among other things, that reusable packaging is not necessarily more green than, say, recyclable corrugated. Buyers of reusable containers have to consider the full lifecycle of those products—where they come from and what happens to them when it's time to replace them. From a strictly environmental perspective, reusable containers can make sense for many, but by no means all, distribution operations. The calculation is not as simple as it might seem at first.

In the second story, Senior Editor Toby Gooley offers up an incisive and detailed look at the coming Tier 4 final emissions restrictions and what they will mean for makers of diesel forklifts and their customers. The short answer is that those forklifts are going to get more expensive but produce far fewer toxic emissions than their predecessors.

I see this as a sustainability story for a couple of reasons. The first is clear enough: Cleaner-burning engines mean less air pollution. Once again, that's a fit with corporate initiatives to reduce carbon footprints. But it touches on another aspect of sustainability as well—worker health. Any comprehensive sustainability initiative must include human resource issues, and cutting workplace pollution is certainly pertinent to employees' health and well-being.

In fact, many of the sustainability programs undertaken to reduce energy use also enhance worker health, safety, and job satisfaction. Better lighting can reduce energy costs while improving the work environment. Better climate control leads to more comfortable—and productive—work environments.

Sustainability coverage tends to focus on projects that do things like reduce energy use. But from a broader perspective, sustainability is about creating business practices that can help a company, its owners, its managers, its workers, and its customers and suppliers thrive over the long run. "Green" initiatives are certainly a big part of that. So is creating safe workplaces. The deadly toll taken by the recent factory fire in Bangladesh provides grievous testimony to just how devastating ignoring workplace safety can be. Truly sustainable business practices require getting it right inside the walls of the factory or DC here at home—and doing business with only those who do the same.

The Latest

More Stories

US Bank truck shipments Q3

U.S. Bank: truck freight shipments and spending slow their decline

Truck freight shipments and spending continued to contract in the third quarter, albeit at a slower pace than earlier this year, according to the latest U.S. Bank Freight Payment Index.

“The latest data continues to show some positive developments for the freight market. However, there remain sequential declines nationwide, and in most regions,” Bobby Holland, U.S. Bank director of freight business analytics, said in a release. “Over the last two quarters, volume and spend contractions have lessened, but we’re waiting for clear evidence that the market has reached the bottom.”

Keep ReadingShow less

Featured

nimble smart robots for fedex

FedEx picks Nimble for fulfillment automation

Parcel giant FedEx Corp. is automating its fulfillment flows by investing in the AI robotics and autonomous e-commerce fulfillment technology firm Nimble, and announcing plans to use the San Francisco-based startup’s tech in its own returns network.

The size of FedEx’s investment wasn’t disclosed, but the company was the lead investor of Nimble’s $106 million “series C” funding round, announced last week. The round was co-led by existing shareholder Cedar Pine LLC.

Keep ReadingShow less

Logistics gives back: October 2024

For the past seven years, third-party service provider ODW Logistics has provided logistics support for the Pelotonia Ride Weekend, a campaign to raise funds for cancer research at The Ohio State University’s Comprehensive Cancer Center–Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute. As in the past, ODW provided inventory management services and transportation for the riders’ bicycles at this year’s event. In all, some 7,000 riders and 3,000 volunteers participated in the ride weekend.


Keep ReadingShow less

Resilience is a daily fight

I recently came across a report showing that 86% of CEOs around the world see resiliency problems in their supply chains, and that business leaders are spending more time than ever tackling supply chain-related challenges. Initially I was surprised, thinking that the lessons learned from the Covid-19 pandemic surely prepared industry leaders for just about anything, helping to bake risk and resiliency planning into corporate strategies for companies of all sizes.

But then I thought about the growing number of issues that can affect supply chains today—more frequent severe weather events, accelerating cybersecurity threats, and the tangle of emerging demands and regulations around decarbonization, to name just a few. The level of potential problems seems to be increasing at lightning speed, making it difficult, if not impossible, to plan for every imaginable scenario.

Keep ReadingShow less
AI tops digital supply chain investment priorities

AI tops digital supply chain investment priorities

Investing in artificial intelligence (AI) is a top priority for supply chain leaders as they develop their organization’s technology roadmap, according to data from research and consulting firm Gartner.

AI—including machine learning—and Generative AI (GenAI) ranked as the top two priorities for digital supply chain investments globally among more than 400 supply chain leaders surveyed earlier this year. But key differences apply regionally and by job responsibility, according to the research.

Keep ReadingShow less