Every day goods are delivered to millions of consumers around the world and demand continues to grow. In line with the estimations of the International Transport Forum, freight emissions are expected to double by 2050. As revealed by the scientific literature, freight transportation and logistics sites generate an important contribution to CO2 emissions and when considering logistics activities for the development of decarbonization strategies, it is important to address not only transportation but also transshipment processes and warehousing. The objective of this study is to explore what aspects of warehousing can contribute the most to the greenhouses emissions and what solutions can reduce the impact on climate change from a life cycle perspective. In line with the objective, this study addresses the following two questions: 1: What are the aspects of warehousing explored with a life cycle perspective? 2: What solutions may reduce the impacts associated with warehousing operations from a life cycle perspective? To answer these questions, a systematic literature review is conducted. A search by keywords is performed in ISI Web of Knowledge with a time horizon from 2000 to 2022. The keywords are selected and combined to investigate the papers whose contents deal with the focus of our study. The resulting combination of keywords is: (warehouse OR warehousing) AND (“life cycle assessment” OR “carbon footprint”). Only papers including consideration of warehousing processes and referring or applying environmental life cycle evaluations are included. Finally, 25 papers are selected for an in-depth examination. A descriptive analysis is carried out to evaluate the main features of the articles; then the articles are classified considering the aspects analyzed and the possible solutions proposed to reduce the impact on climate change. This study highlights that the main aspects explored are energy consumption, infrastructure design, and materials handling and presents the solutions that can help directing towards the decarbonization of warehousing operations.

Exploring the solutions to decarbonize warehousing operations

Sara Toniolo;Ivan Russo
2022-01-01

Abstract

Every day goods are delivered to millions of consumers around the world and demand continues to grow. In line with the estimations of the International Transport Forum, freight emissions are expected to double by 2050. As revealed by the scientific literature, freight transportation and logistics sites generate an important contribution to CO2 emissions and when considering logistics activities for the development of decarbonization strategies, it is important to address not only transportation but also transshipment processes and warehousing. The objective of this study is to explore what aspects of warehousing can contribute the most to the greenhouses emissions and what solutions can reduce the impact on climate change from a life cycle perspective. In line with the objective, this study addresses the following two questions: 1: What are the aspects of warehousing explored with a life cycle perspective? 2: What solutions may reduce the impacts associated with warehousing operations from a life cycle perspective? To answer these questions, a systematic literature review is conducted. A search by keywords is performed in ISI Web of Knowledge with a time horizon from 2000 to 2022. The keywords are selected and combined to investigate the papers whose contents deal with the focus of our study. The resulting combination of keywords is: (warehouse OR warehousing) AND (“life cycle assessment” OR “carbon footprint”). Only papers including consideration of warehousing processes and referring or applying environmental life cycle evaluations are included. Finally, 25 papers are selected for an in-depth examination. A descriptive analysis is carried out to evaluate the main features of the articles; then the articles are classified considering the aspects analyzed and the possible solutions proposed to reduce the impact on climate change. This study highlights that the main aspects explored are energy consumption, infrastructure design, and materials handling and presents the solutions that can help directing towards the decarbonization of warehousing operations.
2022
Warehousing Operations
Decarbonization
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11562/1081854
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