Decarbonizing Logistics ― Distributing Goods in a Low Carbon World

The logistics sector is responsible for around 10 per cent of the total worldwide carbon emissions. These emissions will have to be drastically reduced over the next few decades as part of the global effort to keep average temperature increases within an acceptable range. This reduction will be exceptionally difficult because logistics is heavily dependent on fossil fuels. Decarbonising Logistics outlines the scale and complexity of this climate change challenge and reviews the main options for dealing with it. These options include reducing demand for freight movement, switching freight to lower carbon transport modes, using vehicle capacity more effectively and transforming the use of energy.

The book presents a framework known as TIMBER for assessing the potential for decarbonising logistics at a country level. TIMBER was developed in the course of a research project undertaken at Kühne Logistics University, Hamburg, and co-funded by Unilever and Kuehne + Nagel. Decarbonising Logistics groups the factors influencing the carbon intensity of logistics into six categories: technology, infrastructure, market, behaviour, energy and regulation. The book contains a detailed application of TIMBER, and provides similar analyses on a sample of other countries, including the United States, South Africa, India and Germany, which will be made available online. These analyses will give readers access to a wealth of supplementary material on the decarbonisation of logistics in various countries. Decarbonising Logistics will provide a detailed, in-depth and up-to-date analysis of the opportunities for achieving deep reductions in the amount of carbon emitted by the distribution of goods.

Alan McKinnon is Professor of Logistics at Kuhne Logistics University, Hamburg. He has researched and taught in freight transport and logistics for 35 years and has published extensively in journals and books. The author has undertaken studies for numerous public and private sector organizations and has been an adviser to several UK Government Departments and Parliamentary Committees, the European Commission, the International Transport Forum, International Energy Agency and OECD. He is a member of the European Commission's High Level Group on Logistics and was Chairman of the World Economic Forum's Logistics and Supply Chain Industry Council.