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Until coronavirus reared its ugly head 2020 was set to be the year of sustainability. It’s not as if the small issue of saving the planet has gone away after all: sustainable business practices will change the way that logistics, supply chains and industrial property work. Christopher Walton investigates. Many in logistics will environmental or sustainability policies in place and have a desire or requirement to use more eco-friendly products and services. But the pressure in the warehouse is such that making a meaningful change is fraught with variables and challenges. Some 60% of e-commerce deliveries are, by volume, at least a quarter composed of bubble-wrap, polystyrene beads or just fresh air explains Jo Bradley, business development manager, at Packaging by Quadient. “Much of the dunnage is essentially non-recyclable, but without it the damage rate for small items slamming about in large boxes, already high, becomes unacceptable to consumers and creates an ever-bigger returns problem. It has been estimated that an e-commerce item can go through around 50 touch points, or opportunities for damage, compared with around 10 for a bricks and mortar sale. “The excessive use of cardboard is itself a scandal,” she says, citing the packaging recycling and reduction group WRAP, which says that between 2014 and 2017 use of paper and card in non-grocery consumer retail increased by 11%, to 934,000 tonnes a year. “With the economy effectively flat-lined over this period it is fair to assume that most of this increase was due to the shift to e-commerce – and with oversized packages being commonplace, a large part of this consumption is bound to have been wasteful,” she says. It is not just packaging where the sustainability challenge is being felt. Madhav Durbha, group vice-president, industry strategy, at LLamasoft, says that transportation alone (incorporating road, […]