Today’s the era of smart manufacturing and inducing innovative technologies to transform business processes and usher towards a sustainable future. To exhibit their commitment to preserving nature, many companies are turning sustainable, and the logistics sector is no exception to this trend. Being one of the major contributors to environmental despoliation, the logistics sector is gearing up to acknowledge effective ESG management strategies to diminish carbon footprint.
A proven source of depletion of fossil fuels and environmental degradation, the need for logistics innovation has become a necessity..
Need for logistics innovation
As the name suggests, green logistics is a measure to minimize and counter the ecological impact of traditional logistics practices. Encompassing a variety of sub-sectors like warehousing, distribution, and disposal, it primarily focuses on transportation through environment-friendly and sustainable logistics solutions, via the use of emission-free, electric vehicles thus contributing toward a cleaner environment.
Growing at a steady speed, there is no denying that the future of India is green mobility as EV has taken the world by storm with the global market being projected to grow by 24.3% in less than a decade. Green logistics is becoming a key trend and will emerge as one of the fastest-growing services in India as The Centre pushes the Electric vehicles (EV) programme and recently approved Rs 25,000 crore PLI scheme for the production of lithium-ion cells to boost domestic manufacturing of green vehicles.
The transition to electric and clean mobility has disrupted India’s $160 billion logistics market as new-age startups are emerging to decarbonize the logistics sector and automate the supply chain.
Future of green logistics
There has been an explosion of e-commerce and D2C channels, in the aftermath of Covid-19 lockdown, thus exceeding logistics and delivery services across the country. While this boosts the start-up ecosystem but the negative externalities in terms of carbon footprint are alarming.
Recognizing the need to adopt eco-responsible delivery options, not only players in the logistics operations game are taking initiative, but rather customers have also become conscious. The need for reducing the carbon emissions of deliveries and shipping has encouraged consumers to prefer companies implementing green logistic strategies over traditional ones, as suggested by the recent study by the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) which was published in the Journal of the Transportation Research Board.
Today, if we analyse the current scenario of EV space, it is concluded that several e-commerce, food delivery, grocery delivery, and logistics companies are leveraging EV for their transportation facility by joining hands with EV rental companies to ensure carbon-free delivery. It not only enhances operations by significantly reducing costs and attracting investment in green vehicles.
While green logistics is expected to be the key element of the logistics revolution, various other growth drivers in terms of adoption of IoT, automation technology and data analysis are expected to be potentially leveraged by market players to provide end-to-end smart solutions, while reducing costs and environmental damage.
