Climate Logistics

The relationship between logistics and climate change is generally defined in terms of decarbonisation. In my opinion this significantly under-estimates the scale and complexity of the relationship. I have argued at length elsewhere that ‘moving and storing stuff lies at the heart of our battle against climate change’.  I now the propose the label ‘climate logistics’ as the collective term for the multiple roles that logistics will play in this battle. In this article I outline its scope and its relevance to users and providers of logistics services.

There is no question that logistics is a major cause of climate change. Globally, it is responsible for around 12% of energy-related CO₂ emissions, roughly 85% of which comes from freight transport, the rest mainly from storage and handling operations. When you factor into the calculation emissions of other greenhouse gases (GHGs), such as methane, refrigerant gases and black carbon, all with global warming potentials much higher than CO₂, and express the transport CO₂ figures on a ‘well-to-wheel’ rather than ‘tank-to-wheel’ basis, the estimate of logistics’ contribution to climate change is substantially inflated.

Logistics’s second role, in decarbonisation, is the one that currently attracts most of the attention of governments, businesses, environmental organisations and researchers. Logistics will be one of the hardest economic activities to decarbonise, mainly for four reasons: its very heavy dependence on fossil fuel, the high forecast growth of freight movement, the relatively long replacement cycles for most logistics assets and the highly fragmented structure of the road haulage sector, which accounts for approximately two-thirds of all freight-related emissions worldwide. Efforts to cut logistics emissions are intensifying but at a global level not quickly enough as yet to get onto a net zero trajectory for 2050. 

Logistics is also facilitating the decarbonisation of other activities, most notably in the energy sector. The construction of a renewable energy infrastructure involves the movement of vast quantities of material. For example, around 27 million tonnes of steel may be required between 2024 and 2030 to meet the UK government’s target for wind-turbine development, most of which will have to be imported. Many of the other materials and components required for the transition to renewable energy are sourced through complex global supply chains. The dispersed nature of electricity generation by wind turbines and solar panels also makes their installation and maintenance relatively transport-intensive.

To meet carbon reduction targets, national economies will need to become more circular. One study has suggested that cutting the total consumption of materials by 28% through the increased re-use, recycling and re-manufacture of products could reduce GHG emissions by 39%. This will require a major expansion of reverse logistics systems for domestic, industrial and agricultural waste.

Businesses engaged in logistics have a strong vested interest in climate mitigation, because logistical systems themselves are highly vulnerable to extreme weather events and their geophysical consequences. Logistics has already become major a victim of climate change. Adverse weather was blamed for 27% of supply chain disruptions in 2024, a proportion that is predicted to rise over the next five years. As the connective tissue of an economy, linking widely spread activities often on a just-in-time basis, freight transport operations are particularly susceptible to weather-related disruptions. It is worth noting too that, in England, a survey conducted for the Climate Change Committee has revealed that warehousing is the commercial land-use most exposed to the risk of flooding.

Given this level of vulnerability, the adaptation of logistics systems and operations to climate change clearly needs more investment. Climate protection is now routinely incorporated into the design and maintenance of transport infrastructure, but has yet to receive similar attention in the planning and management of logistics systems and supply chains. They have been described as ‘adaptation blind spots’ in the private sector. There should also be greater recognition of the logistical burdens that the general adaptation of our ‘built environment’ to climate change will impose. It will entail the movement of enormous amounts of construction material. For example, it has been estimated that preparing thirty of Europe’s major ports for a two-metre sea level rise would require 83 million cubic metres of material, enough to fill the Royal Albert Hall a thousand times over!

Logistics sixth role, in rescuing people from climate disasters, will mainly be fulfilled in less developed countries.  Many of them bear very little responsibility for climate change, but, by cruel irony, are likely to suffer its most damaging effects. Many of the 300 million people who required humanitarian assistance and protection in 2024 were in climate-stressed communities. Typically, logistics accounts for 60-80% of expenditure on humanitarian relief efforts. The International Federation of the Red Cross has predicted that the population in need of such relief because of floods, storms, droughts and wildfires could double by 2050. This may prove a gross under-estimate.

Appreciation of logistics’ seventh role in the climate crisis is rooted in the concept of Net Zero. This will require substantial sequestration of CO₂ already in the atmosphere, enough to counter-balance emissions in excess of those consistent with a maximum 1.5^oC increase in average global temperature between 1850 and 2100. It is very difficult to assess the logistical requirements of carbon dioxide/greenhouse gas removal (CDR/GGR) at national, regional or planetary scales, partly because there are many different ways of capturing these gases from the atmosphere, each with a different material and transport profile. It is safe to say, however, that logistics’ role in the carbon sequestration process will be colossal. 

Five activities will generate huge amounts of freight movement: the construction of CDR/GGR infrastructure, the manipulation of natural systems (mainly vegetative and oceanic), the manufacture of carbon capture devices (or ‘scrubbers’), the supply of chemicals for these devices (solvents and sorbents) and the movement of sequestered CO₂ to places where it can be either permanently stored or used in products such as e-fuels. To give a sense of the potential scale of these operations, it is predicted that the EU will need a network of between 15,000 and 19,000 kms of pipeline to move 250 million tonnes of sequestered CO₂ annually by 2050.

Sequestration of CO₂ will be supplemented by its capture from industrial premises. The concentration of CO₂ in exhaust gases is typically between 200 and 2000 times higher than in the atmosphere. Capturing them before their release, while still technically challenging, is easier, cheaper and more energy efficient. The UK government has ambitious plans to promote ‘carbon capture use and storage’ (CCUS) in seven major industrial clusters which currently account for half of the country’s industrial CO₂ emissions. Most of the captured CO₂ will be moved by pipeline, but the government also anticipates significant use of non-pipeline transport (NPT) by ship, road or rail.

The eighth climate role for logistics is the most controversial. This would be in support  of solar geo-engineering, something originally portrayed as the last resort for mankind if carbon mitigation and sequestration efforts fail to stop the planet from crossing climatic tipping points. Now solar radiation management, effectively ‘turning down the sunlight’, is being advocated as a means of trying to cool the earth at an earlier stage as an integral part of climate change policy. The UK’s Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA) has recently announced funding of £56.8m for a research programme that ‘will explore whether approaches designed to delay, or avert, climate tipping points could be feasible, scalable, and safe’. In the main form of solar geo-engineering ‘fleets of aircraft would continually inject sulphur compounds into the upper atmosphere, simulating the effects of a massive array of volcanoes erupting continuously’. 

Designs already exist for ‘stratospheric aerosol injector lofter’ (SAIL) aircraft that could undertake this task at altitudes several kilometres above those currently reached by commercial aircraft. Such geo-engineering at a planetary scale would be logistically very hard to achieve, though current concerns relate much more to the wider environmental, political, governance and ethical issues that it raises. Some climate scientists argue that, given the associated risks, solar geoengineering should be subject to an ‘international non-use agreement’.

Even in the absence of geo-engineering, logistics’ contribution to the future management of the climate crisis will critical, wide-ranging and very costly. Broadening the definition of this contribution carries mixed messages for logistics businesses.

It is likely to be economically beneficial, expanding the future market for logistics services and creating lucrative new commercial opportunities, particularly for those companies willing to diversify into climate-related activities in areas such as CDR and adaptation. In this sense, logistics may have a ninth role in the climate crisis, that of a beneficiary.

Environmentally, however, it will be problematic because the additional climate-related freight movement will make it much harder to decarbonise logistics than previously thought. Current forecasts of freight traffic growth at national, regional and global levels, do not take account of the future logistical demands of climate change adaptation, carbon dioxide removal and the decarbonisation of other sectors.    

For logistics to achieve net zero targets by 2050 or sooner, the average carbon intensity of freight transport will have to drop by a much greater margin and more rapidly to compensate for this extra freight movement. This will be a very formidable task.

In recognition of the magnitude of this task, perhaps ‘climate logistics’ activities could be given longer to reach net zero targets and/or awarded special carbon credits for the key roles they will play in the existential struggle to keep our planet habitable.

Published On: 20/05/2025 13:00:00