Sustainability in time-critical logistics

Published: Wednesday, 1 June 2022

The environmental issues facing our planet can feel so overwhelming that we, as individuals, question whether we can make a worthwhile difference. However, it’s not the sole responsibility of governments to identify a path to sustainability either. It is the collective responsibility of all of us – world leaders, companies and human beings to reduce the negative impact we have on our planet.

As a leading time-critical logistics provider, Priority Freight recognises the impact its work has on the environment. It is a continuous balancing act between meeting our clients’ needs in the quickest way possible while also having minimal impact on the environment. It is no exaggeration to say that many businesses would fail without time-critical logistics – a point that has become increasingly obvious during the last two years especially. The delicate interplay between lean supply and production continuity relies on just-in-time logistics to succeed which, unfortunately, due to its nature, comes at an inherent cost to the environment.

So, what can a specialist business like ours do to reduce its environmental impact?

Minimise external factors

At Priority Freight, we work on various company and employee initiatives to minimise our footprint. Firstly, the company is certified by Lloyds Register as compliant with the international standards, ISO 14001:2015 (Environmental Management). By meeting and maintaining the requirements of this environmental standard, we are continually monitoring and improving our environmental practices. Many of our core customers will only work with approved suppliers who carry this certification, and we are frequently audited and visited by customers who are keen to uphold their Scope 3 emissions targets.

Regarding our own Scope 3 emissions, we reduce our environmental impact by only approving carriers whose vehicles meet specific fuel efficiency standards and who seek to co-load shipments where possible. We will often split a shipment, sending the most urgent part via air to keep a production line moving and sending the less urgent parts via co-loaded road transport. We fulfil more shipments by road than by air and have agreed a vehicle replacement process with carriers to ensure the use of Euro IV+ fleets. We will welcome and actively encourage the use of electric fleets as soon as their range and charge times can support our time-critical business model.

Our in-house development team has built a comprehensive cloud-based transportation management system to assist with shipment optimisation. The system has been rolled out across all sites across the Group and is fully compatible with client Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems: this digital link reduces the requirement for letters and telephone calls, ensuring a cohesive strategy between both parties from the start, maximising optimisation efficiencies and reducing wastage.

Maximise internal control

The 2022 ‘Air Cargo Sustainability Report’ from the International Air Cargo Association (TIACA) states that only 52% of companies have a team dedicated to sustainability practices and we are proud to be one of them. Our Environmental Management team works hard to instil a culture of environmental consciousness in all our staff through awareness and internal campaigns.

Where environmental aspects are within our control, e.g. waste or utility usage at our offices, we reduce impact through recycling and reduction of use, e.g. automatic lights and taps. Our latest Environmental Management report shows a 59% reduction in water use at our UK Head Office, despite an 31% increase in headcount. We’ve also seen a 33% increase in recycling across the year, and we hope to improve this by 5%, to 38%, by the end of the year. At our Dover site, nothing goes to landfill; all our waste is compressed into cubes and taken to a treatment centre where is it processed into secondary raw materials for industry.

Environmental sustainability is a highly important yet complex issue that will not be a quick fix for the logistics industry. We are taking every positive step we can to ensure that our company’s operations leave a minimal trace while also supporting the economy and its growth at this challenging time. The logistics industry is in the infancy of its transition to more environmental practices, but it is a change that we welcome and actively support through our daily operations.