Sustainable e-Commerce and circular economy reshaping urban logistics

Tuesday, December 17th, 2024

The ALICE Logistics Innovation Summit session, “Sustainable e-Commerce and circular economy reshaping urban logistics”, brought together leading experts to explore the transformative potential of sustainable e-commerce and circular economy principles in urban logistics.

The discussion focused on reducing the environmental impact of the rise of e-commerce, addressing urban congestion and using innovative practices to create a more sustainable and economically viable logistics ecosystem.

Moderated by Hans Schurmans, Logistics Director at PROXIMUS and ALICE Urban Logistics Co-chair, the session featured insights from Josephine Darlington(ASTER – Alliance for Sustainable E-commerce), Joy Pasquet (Amazon Logistics for France, Belgium, and Luxembourg), Martina Elfgren (Swedish Commerce Association) and Bartosz Kożuch (Research Group of Logistics, Coordinator of the GreenTurn Project).

Session highlights

Rethinking last-mile deliveries

The surge in e-commerce has dramatically increased the demand for fast, reliable deliveries, creating congestion and environmental challenges in urban areas. To address this, panellists highlighted innovative strategies:

Dynamic sharing of assets: Transforming spaces such as bus depots into micro-hubs during daytime hours for cargo bikes and use public transport networks for multimodal last mile delivery
Engaging consumers: Providing sustainable delivery options to consumers and motivating them to choose the most sustainable delivery options by raising awareness impacts of various delivery options

Reducing returns and use of digital solutions to enable circular economy: using digital formats to collect reasons of returns and assign the returned goods to appropriate destinations to avoid waste from returning goods. These solutions demonstrate how sharing infrastructure and assets can reduce emissions and improve urban mobility.

Embracing circular economy principles

Sustainability in e-commerce goes beyond delivery to include smarter management of returns and integration of local maintenance options. Circular economy practices, such as local repair networks and optimised reverse logistics, offer significant potential to reduce costs and environmental impact:

Returns management: Digitalising return processes (and identification of return motive) can reduce unnecessary transport, with studies showing a potential 60% reduction in CO2 emissions.
Second-hand and maintenance networks: Initiatives such as the Swedish CIRCL project promote local repair services to extend product life cycles and minimise waste.
Consumer behaviour: A growing trend towards second-hand purchases – motivated by sustainability and affordability – highlights the need for logistics systems that support circular practices.

Role of consumer empowerment

Empowering consumers to make informed, greener choices is an important part of the future of e-commerce. Projects such as GreenTurn are pioneering transparency in delivery options, empowering consumers with data to choose sustainable delivery and return methods. Highlights of these efforts include:

Behavioural incentives: Using gamification to encourage consumers to choose low-emission options.
Collaboration: Working with logistics providers, marketplaces, and local authorities across Europe to scale green practices.
Pilot initiatives: Testing methodologies in countries such as Poland, Spain, and Austria to develop scalable models for sustainable e-commerce logistics.

Overcoming regulatory and data challenges

Achieving sustainable e-commerce logistics requires regulatory alignment and data standardisation. The session highlighted several key challenges and opportunities:

Harmonised urban access regulations: Different LEZ (Low Emission Zone) rules across regions create inefficiencies and barriers for logistics providers. Streamlining and digitalising access regulations are essential for scalability.
Driver regulations for electric vehicles: Updates to EU regulations to allow pan EU use of slightly heavier electric vehicles (up to 4.25 tones) are necessary to accelerate fleet electrification.
Standardised data: Accessible and harmonised digital data on access regulations can enable logistics providers to optimise routes and reduce emissions.

The session concluded with a call for collective action among stakeholders – retailers, logistics providers, policy makers, and consumers – to boost innovation and sustainability in urban logistics.

For more insights and to get involved in shaping the future of logistics, explore the ALICE Summit website and consider joining ALICE collaborating with our network of experts. Together, we can create smarter, greener solutions for the challenges of tomorrow.

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