Proposed evaluation criteria for green logistics initiatives

Abstract

The purpose of the project is to examine various green logistics (GL) initiatives in the logistics sector and develop a framework to evaluate them. Many firms have adopted GL initiatives to combat global warming, which has been a prominent concern for governments and consumers in recent years. Certain GL initiatives, however, may be ineffective in lowering carbon footprint and may only serve to enhance the company's brand image. Thus, the goal of this paper is to create a set of evaluation criteria that can be applied theoretically to evaluate GL initiatives. The method of research includes comparing secondary data from previous empirical studies and combining existing criteria that is applicable to GL initiatives. The formulated evaluation criteria consist of (1) Government Support/Regulatory Compliance, (2) Cost, (3) Innovativeness, (4) Carbon Footprint Reduction, (5) Clean Energy and Waste Utilisation, (6) Complexity, and (7) Green Image. These evaluation criteria are applied to a theoretical scenario to demonstrate how firms can make decisions on investing in GL initiatives that contribute to sustainability. The results showed that GL initiatives could be classified into activities that are internal and external to a firm, and empirical findings also indicate that external GL initiatives are lacking in the industry which impedes the progress of logistical firms towards sustainability. The paper’s analysis demonstrates that the evaluation criteria can be used to analyse both internal and external GL initiatives, and also showed that external GL initiatives reduce carbon footprint and cost to implement.