How Your 3PL Can Help You Turn Your Sustainability Goals into Results

How Your 3PL Can Help You Turn Your Sustainability Goals into Results

When a business makes sustainability commitments, it usually happens around a boardroom table. However, much of the behind-the-scenes work necessary to achieve those goals happens in warehouse operations, throughout freight networks, and through supply chain planning efforts. This can create challenges for shippers if they don’t have visibility into their logistics operations and freight partnerships. Without that data, it can be nearly impossible to track progress in any meaningful way.

A good third-party logistics (3PL) partner can help shippers close the gap between motivation and information. By connecting different pieces of the supply chain, such as transportation, fulfillment and distribution, and technology, a 3PL can identify changes that reduce environmental impact, while potentially finding ways to improve service and streamline costs.

The Benefits of Logistics Network Visibility

Generally speaking, you can’t fix what you can’t see. Logistics is no different.

Shippers often have their transportation data spread across carrier partners, facilities, and business units. Even if that data is collected, it often lives in siloed systems, which means that there is no single source of truth for cross-functional teams to work from. In this situation, it can be exceedingly difficult to establish a baseline for emissions or identify which opportunities will have the highest impact.

A good 3PL can help pull all this disparate data together so shippers can analyze freight activity in different lanes, modes, carriers, cargo types, and more. That level of visibility lets shippers see factors that contribute to higher emissions, such as:

• Empty miles
• Unused capacity
• Avoidable expedited shipments
• Long dwell times
• Lanes that would perform better in another mode
• Carriers that underperform

Of note, this is the same type of data used to reduce overall logistics costs, which means shippers can not only improve their ability to measure emissions, but they can also streamline costs.

Smarter Transportation Decisions Reduce Waste

There are many sustainability opportunities that are very accessible from the start. Shippers can make early progress without making massive investments in electric fleets or other green technologies right off the bat. Sustainability and efficiency go hand in hand, so progress starts with using the existing freight system more efficiently.

A 3PL can assist with these efforts by offering support with route consolidation, load planning, shipment consolidation, mode optimization, and carrier selection, which can reduce empty miles traveled and improve asset utilization. A logistics partner can also point out opportunities for a shipper to shift freight to lower-emission modes—such as moving from highway to rail or air to ocean—without impacting service or delivery expectations.

Sustainability improvements don’t all happen in transit, however. A good 3PL suggests ways to reduce congestion at docks and in yards, ultimately reducing long idles and fuel consumption. When the 3PL coordinates these activities holistically, it can sync delivery appointments, pickups, and warehouse activity to reduce waste.

Create a Sustainability Mindset Across Operations

One important thing to note about sustainability: It doesn’t work if it exists as a standalone project owned by a few people or one department. A 3PL can help introduce sustainable choices and activities into logistics-related activities, but these efforts may have little impact on overall goals if the business isn’t invested in continuous improvement.

It helps to view sustainability as a path to resilience and efficiency, and not just a regulatory compliance goal or something to write about in an annual report. Your 3PL can help show you the way, but in the end, cross-functional collaboration is key to making sustainable changes to your operation.

Organizational leaders should take an active role alongside the 3PL in identifying which improvements make sense in the short term, and which are more long-term goals. For example, alternative fuels and electric trucks may be a stretch goal, but reducing packaging waste and warehouse energy usage can happen much sooner.

Most importantly, a 3PL that understands your business can help you avoid chasing one-size-fits-all solutions that may not work for your unique operating model. The right 3PL should do more than just execute your shipments; it should act as a strategic partner that helps you pull together the data and processes you need to make incremental improvements to your logistics and supply chain operations.

“The most effective sustainability strategies are the ones that make the entire supply chain work better,” says Frank P. Crivello, founder and chairman of Phoenix Investors. “When shippers use their 3PL to help them reduce empty miles or position inventory more efficiently, they can lower their costs while also making progress toward sustainability goals.”

For example, Phoenix Logistics supports businesses through tailored real estate, distribution and fulfillment services, transportation management solutions, warehouse technology, and logistics coordination. By looking at these functions as connected aspects of your whole operation, we can help you uncover opportunities to meet service, cost, and sustainability objectives together.

About Phoenix Logistics

Strategic Real Estate. Applied Technology. Tailored Service. Creativity. Flexibility. These fundamentals reflect everything we do at Phoenix Logistics. We provide specialized support in locating and attaining the correct logistics solutions for every client we serve. Most logistics competitors work to win 3PL contracts and then attempt to secure the real estate to support them. As an affiliate of giant industrial real estate firm Phoenix Investors, we can quickly secure real estate solutions across its portfolio or leverage its market and financial strength to quickly source and acquire real estate to meet our clients’ needs.