Sustainable Solutions for SCM

5 SUSTAINABLE ASPECTS OF LOGISTICS ACTIVITIES

When the World Commission on Environment and Development (Brundtland Commission) published its report “Our Common Future” in 1987, it presented a new concept – sustainable development [7]. The concept became one of the most successful approaches to be introduced in many years. In fact, it helped to shape the international agenda and the international community’s attitude towards economic, social and environmental development. Sustainable development has been defined in many ways, but the most frequently quoted definition comes from the Brundtland Report [7]: “Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. It contains within it two key concepts: • The concept of needs, in particular the essential needs of the world’s poor, to which overriding priority should be given. • The idea of limitations imposed by the state of technology and social organization on the environment’s ability to meet present and future needs.” The Brundtland Report highlighted the three fundamental components of sustainable development, the environment, the economy and society, and highlighted a number of major proposals for sustainable development: • Environment – we should conserve and enhance our resource base, by gradually changing the ways in which we develop and use technologies. • Economic growth – economic growth should be revived, and developing nations should be allowed a growth of equal quality to the developed nations. • Social equity – developing nations must be allowed to meet their basic needs of employment, food, energy, water and sanitation. If this is to be done in a sustainable manner, then there is a definite need for a sustainable level of population. Usually, the discussion on sustainable development has been focusing on environmental aspects. In logistics, especially when dealing with packing, transportation and storage, environmental aspects are of course the focus, but for a deeper understanding, economic and social aspects must also be recognised. When studying the ecological aspects of packing and storage, the first thing to look at is demand for packing and storage derived from our material needs. Why do we pack and store materials? The world is populated by over 7 billion human beings with needs that must be satisfied. As we are living in a highly specialised production system in which materials need to be transported even long distances for processing, manufacturing, distribution and retailing.

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