When it comes to sustainability strategies, collaborative distribution is the total package: improved business value proposition, sizable cost reduction and promise of significant emissions reductions. The potential of this strategy is why EDF listed it #2 on our Five Rules for a More Carbon-Efficient Freight Supply Chain. Under a collaborative distribution arrangement, companies in the [...]
Timing is everything, and companies facing choices around freight transportation modes must consider transit times, inventory levels and demand forecasts when making decisions. Ease pressure on these variables and you enable companies to utilize cheaper and more carbon-efficient modes of transportation. In many cases, companies can increase the flexibility of their supply chains by developing [...]
Michelle Mauthe Harvey co-leads Environmental Defense Fund's on-site partnership with Walmart in Bentonville, Arkansas, advancing sustainable business practices throughout its operations and supply chain. Is Walmart more hype than reality? Having worked with Walmart since 2005, my colleagues and I at Environmental Defense Fund are often asking that question, stepping back from our day-to-day work [...]
In an article posted online this week, Mother Jones magazine makes a sweeping critique of Walmart’s efforts to reduce the environmental impacts created by its Chinese supply chain. Having been closely involved with Walmart on these and other sustainability initiatives since 2005, we’d like to offer EDF’s perspective on the story, and on what’s at [...]
Fuel prices are back on the rise and companies are taking stock of opportunities to reduce costs and exposure to oil price spikes. The future trends in freight growth also call attention to the need to dramatically improve the efficiency of the current freight system. From 2010 to 2040, global demand for energy to power [...]
The most impactful sustainability decision made by logisticians is the choice of transportation mode to move their freight. Planes emit 47 times more carbon per ton mile than container ships; trucks emit six times more carbon per ton mile than trains. The more carbon intensive modes typically cost more as well. A recent article in [...]
Tuesday Morning, an “off-price” retailer with over 850 stores, has been able to transition 20% of its inbound freight to a rail/truck intermodal mix, according to Logistics Management. The goods typically travel from Asia to the ports of LA and Long Beach. From there they travel over 1,400 miles to the company’s one distribution center, [...]
Today, more than 50 million tons of freight are on the move throughout the United States. Many products can be found onboard ships in our nation’s largest ports. Some of the heaviest cargo is moving along in rail cars, and a few of the highest value items are flying in the belly of planes.. And [...]
Walmart’s The Green Room recently published a blog about shoeboxes. For a behemoth retailer like Walmart, one would think that worrying about shoeboxes isn’t high on its list of priorities. But this attention to detail is the kind of thing that makes environmental progress possible and Walmart effective. Scale In 2005, Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) [...]
By Will Pekel, Intern, Corporate Partnerships Program What if there was one source for comprehensive and credible information about the environmental and social sustainability of everyday products? Could such a resource accelerate the environmental and social change we need across the retail industry, from suppliers to retailers to consumers? In 2009, Walmart provided the initial [...]
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