DOES THE CONCEPT OF 'NEARPORTING' PROVIDE A PATHWAY TO BETTER LOGISTICS SUSTAINABILITY?

Abstract

Firms are looking for innovative solutions to become greener regarding their end-to-end supply chain emissions without incurring additional costs.  This paper discusses one such solution through a simple concept of ‘nearporting’, which is the explicit decision to use the nearest port of loading/discharging of cargo to reduce the overall amount of CO₂ and other emissions.  This paper’s empirical study has modeled data supplied by a major UK third-party logistics service provider comparing actual shipments to what could be achieved if a nearporting strategy was used.  Actual shipment data using origin and destination postcodes were analysed to calculate the reduction in road freight mileage and related reduction in CO₂ emissions against additional nautical miles travelled which may termper some of the savings, but overall it was found that substantial savings would be achieved.