Logistics companies must reduce their CO2 emissions in absolute terms and not just seek relativeimprovements backed up with compensation activities, experts said in a ‘Green Logistics’ panel
discussion at yesterday’s DHL Innovation Day event.Matthias Kopp, energy and financial sector manager for WWF Germany, told the 250-strongaudience that Germany would have to cut CO2 emissions by 95% by 2050 in order to help limit globalwarming to a 2° increase. A ‘do nothing’ approach would contribute to a 7° global temperatureincrease, he warned. The 95% reduction target effectively meant ‘de-carbonising’ the economy, andthis target could not be achieved without the use of bio-fuels, he stressed.
In particular, companies had to reduce their CO2 footprints in absolute terms, and not justrelatively since this approach would not lead to an overall reduction, Kopp declared. “If youalways transport more goods further with CO2-intensive means, then you will not get anywhere,” hedeclared. In future, a ‘product CO2 footprint’ could become a competitive feature and enableconsumers to make an informed choice about the CO2 impact of the products they buy, he predicted.
Martin Schmied, deputy head of the infrastructure department at the ‘Öko-Institut’ (Institutefor Applied Ecology) research organisation, praised Deutsche Post DHL as ‘a leading example’ interms of sustainability activities that other logistics companies should follow. The use ofbio-fuels was not currently possible and firms thus needed to take interim steps focusing onefficiency improvements, he said. However, CO2 reduction should be the target. “Compensation andemissions trading can be a short-term step,” he declared.
Rainer Wend, Deutsche Post DHL head of sustainability, stressed: “The importance of greenlogistics will grow for Deutsche Post.” However, it was not possible for the company, which aims tocut CO2 emissions per item by 30% by 2020 compared to 2007, to fix absolute CO2 reduction targetsat present. Indeed, the interim goal of a 10% reduction by 2012 was “very ambitious” due to lowervolumes (combined with the fixed operational network), he added. It remained very difficult tocalculate the group’s CO2 footprint with 80% usage of sub-contractors, he noted.
The company’s GoGreen programme helped customers to reduce their own CO2 footprint while theforthcoming electronic letter service would make sense both economically and environmentally, Wendpointed out. Moreover, CO2 pricing would make sense since it would favour CO2-efficienttransportation means, he commented.
Daniel Schmid, head of sustainability for German software company SAP, said the company, witha CO2 footprint of 500,000 tonnes, aimed to reduce its emissions total to the level of 2000 by2020. The company had opted for GoGreen products to reduce its own footprint and gain moretransparency, he added. The IT industry contributed just as much as the transportation sector toglobal warming, and needed to become more energy-efficient and reduce its own CO2 emissions, hestressed.
Professor Heike Flämig, of the Institute for Transport Planning and Logistics at the HamburgTechnical University, commented that consumers should be made more aware that “without thetransportation industry, they would not have this standard of living.”
