THE DC VELOCITY Q&A
thoughtleaders
Up until last year, members of the 3PL industry lacked a set of standards for assessing the sustainability of their operations. Thanks to Linda Hothem and her cohorts at IWLA, that’s about to change. Setting the standard
INTERVIEW WITH LINDA HOTHEM
THE IDEA SOUNDED SIMPLE
enough, Linda Hothem recalls. Rather
than ask the market to accept 3PLs’
sustainability claims on faith, why not
establish a LEED-like program for
logistics? What third-party warehouses and distribution centers lacked was
a set of universal standards they could
use to demonstrate their progress
toward adopting sustainable practices.
It should be relatively easy to develop
something on par with the widely
embraced metrics used by the construction industry.
But it didn’t turn out to be quite so
simple, says Hothem, CEO of logistics
service provider Pacific American
Group and outgoing member chair of
the International Warehouse and
Logistics Association’s (IWLA) board
of directors. Part of the problem was
that several aspects of sustainability
turned out to be extremely tough to
measure—while it’s easy enough to
quantify energy use or water con-
sumption, it’s a whole different story
with social responsibility or corporate
citizenship.
