Sustainable transportation and mapping of logistics activities - With the goal of having fossil-free transportation by 2030

Abstract

Today’s supply chains have become more global than ever before, which has brought out an enormous increase in environmental damage such as CO2 emissions. In an initiative to become more environmentally friendly, Swedish Food Federation has launched a joint sustainability manifest. 41 food producers in Sweden have joined this initiative and The Company is one of them. The manifest consists of five commitments, where this thesis project is related to the first commitment. This commitment states that The Company needs to become fossil-free in their operations, including transportation, by 2030.

The purpose of the thesis is to develop a plan for The Company which helps them achieve the fossil-free transportation goal by 2030.

The research method of this master thesis is a single case study of sustainable transportation, where the unit of analysis is The Company’s transportation operations. The case research allows the authors of this paper to investigate the phenomenon deeply and conduct semi-structured interviews with the stakeholders to develop a plan for the sustainability goal by 2030. The primary data is collected by qualitative semi-structured interviews with both internal and external stakeholders. Secondary data has been gathered through internet search and excel-files provided by the stakeholders. Furthermore, Swedish Transportation Agency’s website has been used to gather data regarding different vehicles.

The recommendations are made in two sections: KPIs and the roadmap. There are five KPIs recommended to The Company to measure in order to achieve the ultimate goal of becoming fossil-free in transportation by 2030. The roadmap aims to provide a plan to The Company to achieve the goal by 2030, by changing the leasing cars to 100% BEV, existing fossil-fueled forklifts with electric forklifts, purchasing 100% HVO fuel for the trucks by the LSPs, and lastly having fossil-free tractors either by using biofuels or electric tractors. The roadmap includes activities, market analysis and goals where the activities and market analysis are the steps to achieve the goals.

Popular Abstract

Fossil-Free Transportation By 2030 For A Food And Beverage Manufacturer In Sweden
BY BENGISU ÖZER & THERESE LANTTO (May 2020)

Environmental sustainability is an up-to-date global topic and decreasing the dependency on fossil fuels is getting on top of the agendas of many organizations. This thesis aims to develop a plan for a Swedish company that serves in the food and beverage industry to become fossil-free in the transportation operations at the organizational level by 2030. We hope that the roadmap will help other companies to start this change as well.

Today's supply chains have become more global than ever before, where people choose online shopping from global companies, in order to obtain a reduction in cost and the best possible quality. However, this habit has also brought a big increase in environmental damage, such as carbon dioxide (CO2) emission which causes a big damage to the atmosphere. Luckily, in the last few years, customer priorities have started to change, and customers have become more conscious about the environment and started demanding environmentally friendly solutions and products. Companies value customer demand to survive in the global market and try to satisfy their customers. Therefore, the companies have started taking action on becoming more environmentally friendly.
The Swedish Food Federation has started working towards an environmentally friendly future by initiating a sustainability manifest. The focal company signed this sustainability manifest in April 2019 together with many other food manufacturers in the Skåne region in Sweden. The manifest has five goals and this thesis focuses on the first goal. This goal aims to have a fossil-free industry by 2030 and the focal company has been working on sustainable production successfully. Moreover, as a first attempt, this project is executed to become fossil-free in transportation by 2030.
After conducting interviews with the stakeholders and analyzing the data, we developed a roadmap for the focal company to become fossil-free by 2030 in transportation operations. The roadmap includes personal vehicles, trucks, tractors, and forklifts. This means that the study covers both internal and external transportation activities regardless of how big or small the impact they have on the environment. We have also defined key performance measurements (KPIs) for each type of vehicle to monitor the progress for ten years. Measuring the performance is specifically important for forklifts and tractors since it is not possible to make these operations fossil-free at the moment. The KPIs will help the focal company keep track of the improvements.

By analyzing the current transportation operations and their emission levels, we have given recommendations for how each transportation type should be changed in order to not use any fossil fuels. The first recommendation is to change their leasing vehicles from diesel and hybrid cars to only electric vehicles. Instead of using mixtures of biofuels and diesel in their truck deliveries, they should start using only biofuel (HVO). Their current fossil-fueled forklifts need to be replaced with forklifts that are driven only on electricity. Lastly, their tractors that are driven on diesel, need to be exchanged with tractors that can be driven on biofuels or electricity.

Collaborating with the focal company and its two main logistics service providers, we aimed to help them achieve fossil-free transportation by 2030. Transportation operations that are not dependent on fossil fuels will provide a better environment for today’s society and the future generations.

• author: Lantto, Therese and Özer, Bengisu
• supervisor: Jan Olhager
• organization: Engineering Logistics; Department of Industrial Management and Logistics
• course: MTTM02 20201
• year: 2020
• type: H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
• subject: Technology and Engineering
• keywords: Logistics map, transportation, sustainability, fossil-free, food manufacturing, carbon emissions, biofuels, electric vehicles, KPIs, roadmap
• report number: 5911
• language: English
• id: 9010366
• date added to LUP: 2020-05-27 11:39:48
• date last changed: 2020-05-27 11:39:48