Skip to main content

Excessive packaging causes unnecessary road traffic

Bernhard Simon, chief executive of Dachser, a Germany-headquartered European logistic provider, says he believes that one in five truck journeys would not be necessary if superfluous packaging was avoided. This could reduce annual carbon dioxide emissions by up to eight million tons he believes. In 2005 CO2 emissions from road cargo transport in Germany amounted to 36.7 million tons and the Federal Environment Agency has forecast emissions to rise to 44.4 million tons by 2020.
May 17, 2012 Read time: 1 min
Bernhard Simon, chief executive of 5597 Dachser, a Germany-headquartered European logistic provider, says he believes that one in five truck journeys would not be necessary if superfluous packaging was avoided. This could reduce annual carbon dioxide emissions by up to eight million tons he believes. In 2005 CO2 emissions from road cargo transport in Germany amounted to 36.7 million tons and the 5598 Federal Environment Agency has forecast emissions to rise to 44.4 million tons by 2020.

Julia Wolf, logistics professor at the European Business School in Wiesbaden, argues that transport costs are too low. She says that transport costs account for 15 per cent of the price of a product on average, and 20 per cent of the transport costs depends on the road carrier's utilisation rate. The more links a distribution chain consist of, the greater is the likelihood of excessive packaging.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • ITSWC 2021: New solutions for the new normal
    September 20, 2021
    October’s ITS World Congress in Hamburg will profile the changing face of mobility, with real-world examples of electric vehicle implementation, shared transport and autonomy taking centre stage
  • TomTom traffic index shows increase in UK congestion
    April 1, 2015
    TomTom’s today 5th annual Traffic Index, the barometer of traffic congestion in over 200 cities worldwide, reveals rising congestion levels around the globe In addition, for the first time, the Index took an in-depth look at the true impact of rush hour traffic on the work week, uncovering that evening rush hour nearly doubles the journey time for car commuters. The analysis of 12 trillion pieces of traffic data worldwide revealed that the evening rush hour is the most congested time of day. Traffic co
  • IEEE survey reveals driverless cars are the future
    July 15, 2014
    IEEE has released the findings of a survey that revealed expert opinions about the future of driverless cars, from challenges to mass adoption, essential autonomous technologies, features in the car of the future, and geographic adoption. More than 200 researchers, academicians, practitioners, university students, society members and government agencies in the field of autonomous vehicles, participated in the survey. When survey respondents were asked to assign a ranking to six possible roadblocks to th
  • CES 2020: ITS does Vegas
    March 3, 2020
    Keen to find out what the future holds, 170,000 people gathered in Las Vegas for CES 2020 to see 20,000 product debuts and 4,400 exhibitors... and ITS International was there too (All images: CES®)