Just as transport and logistics contribute to global prosperity, freight transport has great potential for environmentally oriented and greenhouse gas-reduced supply and delivery processes. The focus is on the optimization of logistics concepts and the environmentally oriented orientation of transport and supply processes in the context of global value-added networks.
The assessment of environmental benefits of, for example, renewable energies is based on several levels of consideration: in addition to the transport service including handling, consolidation, storage processes etc., in particular the production and conversion processes of the different primary energy sources used (energy chain, well-to-wheel), the upstream logistics networks (pre-transport chain) as well as the production of the means of transport, the value-added activities of the companies involved, the construction and maintenance of the transport infrastructure (production chain, cradle-to-grave) etc. should be included.
The focus is on the following questions, among others:
- How high are the CO2e along a value chain?
- Which planning measures reduce the CO2e in logistics processes?
- Which (vehicle) technical measures to reduce CO2e can be implemented in the short term?
- Can the system limits for CO2e measurement be defined as desired?
- Which legal regulations currently apply in the various EU countries (driving bans, driving/rest periods, CO2 measurement, environmental zones, exhaust emission standards, etc.)?
- Can transport performance be decoupled from economic performance?
- Are platooning, overhead line hybrids, long trucks etc. economically and ecologically sensible measures?
- Do innovative last-mile concepts (autonomous delivery robots, drones etc.) contribute to CO2e reduction?
- Is reusable packaging or reusable load carriers always ecologically better than a one-way solution?
- What potential do VR/AR technologies have in production and logistics?
- To what extent do new picking technologies (Pick-by-X) contribute to process improvement and environmental orientation?
- Is there a trade-off between ecology and economy of JIT/JIS concepts?