Sustainability and the Logistics Service Industry: Red Thread from a Workshop

Sustainability in business is clearly recognized as a very important topic which is intensively discussed in theory and practice. (When it comes to the social and ecological aspects of sustainability, the logistics and transportation industry is often considered one of the prime suspects to be identified as a major polluter reluctant to implement changes and improvements. A workshop was designed and organized in the fall of 2011 to start a discussion on the role that the logistics service industry plays or should play in the sustainability business. The clear objective was to work on the issue – not from the viewpoint of politics and society, not from the viewpoint of industry and the retail sector, and not from that of academia ‐ but from the view of the logistics service providers. In other words, the workshop was designed to help develop a clear statement of the role of the logistics industry. A statement of the logistics industry’s role as the logistics industry understands it. This short paper recapitulates the red thread of the workshop discussions and ends with a summary. This summary is meant as a first draft of a manifest of the industry regarding their view towards the topic of sustainability. It provides statements in response to four basic questions regarding sustainability. As this manifest is made by a focused, but in size and geography limited group, it is of course not representative. Therefore we would like to encourage everyone from the industry in addition to those from outside the industry to support us with comments. Tell us if and why you agree or not, and how we could improve and augment the statements made.