Save carbon, save costs: here’s how to make sustainable choices for your e-commerce business

When it comes to e-commerce logistics, transport is the biggest contributor to carbon emissions. Rather than being intimidated by this, view it instead as a significant opportunity to reduce your carbon footprint.

Specifically, the most carbon intensive part of your fulfillment will be delivering individual orders to end customers. The solution? Store your goods closer to your consumers. By decentralizing your fulfillment operations, you can make your deliveries more local, reducing the need for cross-border shipping. Greener worldwide fulfillment through local distribution centers? Yes! Faster and cheaper fulfillment too.

You can also reduce your carbon footprint in the inbound flows to your warehouses: if you plan and monitor your stock levels well, you can avoid having to use air freight to move stock and instead can rely on ocean or road freight. Again, greener, and also more efficient and cheaper.

This part of your logistics operations has less impact on your carbon footprint than transport, but there are nevertheless savings to be made.

Modern warehouses are increasingly designed to be carbon neutral, or low carbon. This is accomplished through sustainable construction practices, such as using recycled concrete and steel, eco-friendly alternatives to cement, and recyclable cladding.

Operational emissions can also be reduced when warehouses use greener sources of energy, while at the same time reducing energy use. Solutions include solar panels and battery storage, LED lighting, motion-sensor lighting, rainwater harvesting, EV charging points and smart energy meters.

Here’s where ‘reduce, reuse, recycle’ comes into play, giving you various options to suit your needs.

• Reduce:
  Keep your packaging compact and well sized for your goods. Don’t spend money shipping empty space!
• Reuse:
  Think about your filling material. Minimize its use by selecting well-fitting packaging and choose sustainable options like shredded paper instead of polystyrene chips.
• Recycle:
  Choose paper over plastic. Explore the excellent paper-based alternatives that are available and go one step further by choosing recycled paper over new, shiny options.

Supply chain sustainability is part of our DNA. DHL is the world’s leading logistics company and we were also the first logistics company to commit to net-zero emissions. We can help you make sustainability part of your DNA too.

We can enable you to make greener choices for your business, thanks to our technology and partners, and our international spread of warehouse locations that enable you to keep stock near your customers. Not only will this reduce your carbon emissions, but it will also reduce your costs.

We could say: “Talk to us today about green supply chains,” but with us, you are already making a sustainable choice. So, simply talk to us today!