Who Controls Transport Emissions? : Investigating Monitoring of Environmental Sustainability from a Logistics Service Provider's Perspective

Purpose of this paper: The purpose of this article is to explore the environmental impact of LSP activities in the light of increased customer attention and fragmentation of the industry and to explore to what extent LSPs can actually monitor the environmental impact of logistics activities in the supply chain.

Design/methodology/approach: This research is based on a narrative literature review, an interview study, a case survey and three in-depth case studies. A framework on sustainability challenges in supply chains derived from the literature is used to structure and analyze the findings.

Findings: Our findings reveal that despite ambitious environmental schemes communicated by several LSPs, LSPs exert little control as well as interst over the actual emissions created from their transport operations. Furthermore, it is clear from this study that any real concern in environmental solutions that impact the cost and time requirements from customers of logistics services are not yet a reality.

Value: This paper represents a novel approach as to how LSP environmental policies should be viewed. Furthermore, it highlights a concrete need of action in order to reach the environmental targets of 2020 and 2050 when it comes to carbon emissions from road transports.

Research limitations/implications (if applicable): This paper implies that LSP sustainability cannot be investigated in isolation if a company does not manage proprietary resources.

Practical implications (if applicable): Our findings imply that environmental policies between different LSPs appear similar, but in practice differs, which stresses the importance of follow-up control by environmentally aware logistics service buyers.