DC Velocity - December 2011

specialreport
BY PETER BRADLEY, EDITORIAL DIRECTOR

“We’re green
and we can
prove
it”

Up to now, you pretty much had to take

3PLs’ sustainability claims on faith.

A new IWLA initiative aims to change that.

SKEPTICS ONCE MAY HAVE CONSIDERED THE MOVEment toward sustainable practices in American business to be a temporary detour from business as usual. To make those practices, well, sustainable, they argued, required more than a social conscience. They required a payoff on the bottom line.

That is exactly what has happened. Companies that have embraced sustainability and implemented new practices and technologies in a careful and rational fashion have realized not only environmental and social benefits but financial benefits as well.

“Companies are starting to recognize that things can be done in a sustainable way … that could save money and affect the bottom line,” says Richard Bank, a director of the Washington, D.C.-based Sustainable Supply Chain Foundation. The organization supports research to identify best practices and technologies aimed at furthering sustainable practices in supply chains.

The companies that continue to take the initiative to adopt sustainable practices and programs across their supply chains are some of the biggest names in international

business—organizations like Walmart, UPS, and W. W. Grainger.

Now, a major trade group for third-party logistics service providers (3PLs) has joined the cause. Earlier this year, the International Warehouse Logistics Association (IWLA) announced its own program. Called the Sustainable Logistics Initiative, the new program was developed by IWLA in concert with the Sustainable Supply Chain Foundation.

IWLA says the new initiative is the first of its kind. It is not a certification program like LEED, the U.S. Green Building Council’s accreditation program, but rather a way for participants to demonstrate their progress toward more sustainable operations. The initiative is designed specifically for warehouses and DCs, not broader transportation and logistics companies. “One of the commonalities of our 500 or so members is that we all operate big warehouse boxes,” says IWLA chairman Linda Hothem. “Our focus is inside the box.”