How to Start a Sustainable Logistics Company

After the United Nations identified 17 different sustainability development goals (SDGs), many businesses, including logistics, are making sustainability a business practice. As concerns around climate change continue to take center stage, logistic companies are more committed to implementing sustainable and green logistics in their supply chain. 

While more and more customers prefer to do business with a sustainable brand, many logistics companies are drowning in a large volume of plastic packages and reducing carbon emissions.

Before starting a sustainable logistic business, let’s understand what it means.

What is sustainable logistics?

Sustainable logistics or green logistics refers to the actions companies take to reduce the environmental impact of their supply chain, from processing raw materials to delivering the products to customers. These companies reduce the environmental footprints of shipping, which include carbon dioxide emission, material wastage, and noise pollution. 

Sustainable logistic companies balance their financial growth and protect the environment from hazardous materials.

But how do you start a sustainable logistics company?

How to start a sustainable logistics company

While many startups and entrepreneurs haven’t figured out how to build a sustainable logistics company, your customers are ready to pay more for sustainable shipping. After identifying your target market, conducting market analysis, creating a business plan, and raising funds and investments, use this step-by-step guide on how to start your company:

Many delivery trucks rely on gasoline or diesel because of its affordability. While diesel engines are not environment-friendly, they emit 13% more carbon dioxide or CO2 than gasoline engines. So, when starting a logistics company, you should replace outdated fleets with eco-friendly vehicles such as those run on low-carbon fuels like biofuel. 

Many companies employ green transportation options like hybrid or electric cars, sea cargo, and trains. Interestingly, many companies can reduce emissions from their distribution facility and warehouses by using cleaner energy powered by solar or wind recycling technologies. 

When using alternative vehicles and fuel technologies, the sky’s the limit. You only need to know how to manage your fleet. By evaluating and optimizing the fleet composition, you can replace or remove underutilized vehicles, conserving fuel and cutting emissions.

To understand how to manage your new fleet, download this free fleet management guide.

There are many ways in which using technology contributes to your sustainability goals. Companies focusing on tech-first policies and integrating software and systems can impress their customers with the same environmental goals. 

One such sustainable and eco-friendly technology is battery software, convenient for companies using electric vehicles in their fleet. 

Such software lends a helping hand in reducing carbon footprints. This software manages and optimizes your battery usage. Apart from helping you with battery usage management, this software offers the following benefits:

• Optimizes your route: By intelligently creating and optimizing your route, these tools increase the life of your EV fleet, allowing you to deliver goods efficiently. 

• Tracks battery health: Most of these battery software tracks the health of your battery and ensures proactive maintenance. This reduces the downtime of your EV fleet while maximizing the battery’s lifespan.

• Reduces cost: As battery software optimizes your routes and reduces the vehicle’s ideal time, you save on fuel costs and witness increased operational efficiency.

Many present-day logistics companies follow the golden 4R strategy, which focuses on Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, and Recover.

The 4R strategy helps you fight potential issues in your supply chain. These 4Rs are:

• Reduce your packaging material consumption.

• Reuse the same material whenever possible.

• Recycle your existing materials to create more sustainable packing solutions.

• Recover resources through efficient lifecycle management.

This can be as simple as removing single-use plastic with other reusable and eco-friendly materials like corrugated cardboard boxes, Kraft folding cartons, tin boxes, and collapsible rigid boxes. Doing so saves costs and makes your logistics business more profitable.

Adopting the 4R strategy can be a game-changer for your vision of a sustainable company because it contributes to a greener future for years.

It’s one thing to make your fleet travel long distances and it’s completely another to bring your products closer to your customers. 

With last-mile delivery emissions likely to jeopardize your efforts for a sustainable company, creating a smart warehouse network is more than essential. Many logistic companies use centralized distribution warehouses rather than shipping everything from one warehouse. 

Such a smart network brings your customers closer to products they need, reducing your carbon footprint. Besides making your logistics company more sustainable, centralized warehouses significantly reduce delivery costs and time, enhance flexibility, and generate tremendous support for the local community.

Fast and overnight shipping has a detrimental effect on your carbon footprint and costs. Surprisingly, many businesses overlook this aspect to provide same-day or 2-3-hour delivery to their customers. 

The golden rule in logistics is simple: the more time you have, the easier it becomes to plan and optimize your routes and even manage the load of your vehicles. It prevents scenarios where one vehicle is fully loaded, and another delivers goods with just one package. 

Interestingly, with one delivery per trip, your carbon emissions are 35 times more than delivering goods in a fully loaded truck for the same distance.

So, what are you waiting for? Discourage same-day or 2-3-hour delivery to move closer to building a sustainable future and allow customers to choose lower-impact delivery. 

Choosing your delivery style is a core aspect of your logistic company as it helps you with brand positioning. 

To become a sustainable logistic company, stay up-to-date with the latest laws related to the environment and carbon footprint. This helps you impress your customers. Having a solid understanding of waste management, sustainability practices, and environmental rules helps you stay focused and ensures you don’t end up paying fines for non-compliance. 

By acquiring certifications like ISO 14001 and Green Freight Programs shows your commitment to sustainable business practices. You can use these standards on your websites and even when negotiating a deal with your potential customers. 

While these certifications may not be mandatory, they’re good to have as they help you with long-term business success while positively impacting on your business. 

To encourage customers to choose your sustainable business over other logistic companies, it’s essential to market your offering to create awareness. You can run awareness and advertisement campaigns on social media, encouraging customers to adopt green checkout practices.

You can even communicate your commitment to sustainability as a part of your business and brand identity. Many logistic companies build a community of followers who believe in their mission and help them reach their target audience.

Other ways to create awareness is by using different SEO strategies, focusing on content marketing, and giving weightage to social media to improve your online visibility.

Another great strategy is showing every customer your carbon footprint and how they helped them save the environment. By showing your impact number, you create transparency in your business and let the number talk for your initiatives.

Eco-driving helps you reduce fuel consumption.

But what is eco-driving?

Eco-driving ensures smooth acceleration and deceleration, maintaining a steady speed, avoiding unnecessary idle, and driving at a particular speed to achieve maximum mileage. It optimizes fuel efficiency and reduce carbon emissions.

Also, did you know that keeping your tires at optimal pressure keeps your fuel consumption under control? Educating your drivers on these aspects helps you minimize your carbon emissions.

Many companies are using IoT-enabled devices to monitor tire pressure. As a part of eco-driving education, these sensors monitor and collect data on speed and fuel consumption, helping you optimize your carbon emissions.

When training your drivers, ensure they understand the importance of shifting gears appropriately to increase fuel efficiency. These small operational adjustments help you achieve your long-term goals.

The last step is to measure and report sustainability performance. It helps you understand and improve your environmental, social, and economic impact.

Use different measurement frameworks and reporting systems to track your progress. These systems even identify improvement areas and communicate your sustainability efforts to stakeholders.

As a result, you promote transparency, accountability, and continuous improvement in sustainable practices, leading to a more sustainable future.

Building a sustainable logistic company

Going sustainable doesn’t end with just starting a sustainable logistics company. In fact, it’s a very long-term commitment, which involves understanding the issue, coming up with a plan, and imbibing it in your company’s culture.

By nature, logistics companies face many environmental challenges. However, every small step toward achieving a sustainable business brings you closer to your goals. Making your supply chain sustainable requires perseverance, and what’s better than starting it from ground zero?

Implementing environmentally friendly logistic solutions will ensure a net zero carbon emission in the coming years.