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Environmental Committee

Committee Guide

This year’s topic of the Environmental Committee (EC), Creating green logistics – a question of global commitment, is relatively new and increasingly important to the global community. It includes both environmental and economic issues.

Definition

In general, logistics includes the transport, storage and handling of products. Jonathan Weeks defines it the following way: “Logistics is the movement of materials from the earth through production, distribution and consumption back to the earth”. Thus, the return of waste product and packaging for reuse, recycling and disposal is involved as well.

In particular, Balkan Tufan Cetinkaya states that Green Logistics is the “integral transformation of logistics strategies, - structures, - processes and - systems in enterprises and business networks to achieve more environmentally friendly and resource efficient logistics processes. The aim of Green Logistics is to establish a sustainable enterprise value through balanced economic and ecologic efficiency”.

Economic considerations

Logistics is seen as an important parameter of business performance. It usually correlates with economic development. For that reason the overall amount of freight transport and storage is said to rise as gross domestic products (GDPs) of certain UN member states continue to increase. At the same time, the movement of freight accounts for roughly a third of all the energy consumed by transport (UN IPCC, 2007). It also accounts for roughly eight percent of energy-related CO2 emissions world-wide. Warehousing and goods handling add another two to three percent. We will see further effect of logistics on the environment in the next section.

In economics, people like to refer to transport volume in terms of Freight tonne-kilometres (FTK). It is “a uniform measurement for freight volume, corresponding to one ton of freight carried over a distance of one kilometer”.

For instance, within the European Union (EU) FTKs have been growing at a faster rate than the EU economy as a whole over the previous decade. Even though the goal of the parliament was and still is to lower FTKs. (The United Kingdom of Great Britain is one of few countries that already show a negative correlation of FTKs and economic activity.)

We have seen that logistics play a major role for economies of more economically developed countries (MEDCs). We may also anticipate that newly industrialized countries (NICs) are to profit from integration of Green Logistics.  Since the markets in NICs are emerging at a very fast pace (and due to the usual economic correlation of logistics and economic growth), those countries need to cope with higher demand of transport, allocation and distribution of products and resources. Now, let us consider ecologic reasons for implementing Green Logistics on a world-wide level.

Environmental effects

Logistics has a major impact on the environment, especially on climate due to its high energy consumption. A famous example for the consequences of logistics is the fact that for every pot of strawberry yoghurt sold in a German supermarket, a truck had to travel nine meters (Böge, 1994).

This proves that uncritical ways of consumption may increase ecological problems. Every truck, every plane, ship or train adds greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, pollutes the environment, disturbs nature with noise and causes deaths by accident.

Therefore, the aim of Green Logistics should be to reduce the environmental impact of logistics operations. Now, the remaining – and probably most important – question of our committee is how?  What are possible ways to achieve Green Logistics? Do we need international, national or regional regulations and standards? Do we need to tighten those measures already implemented? How can we deliver and control success?

Means of regulation

First of all, governments and companies have to make sure they share similar goals. Therefore, the so called “triple bottom line” should be included which reconciles environmental, economic and social objectives. Some key drivers behind company initiatives to green their logistical systems and supply chains are corporate image, competitive differentiation, cost saving and compliance with government regulation. It is not surprising that especially transportation companies make great effort to implement “environmentally responsible logistics” (ERL).

Diplomats and politicians influence this matter as well. There are different measurements governments or non-governmental organizations (NGOs) can introduce. For instance, it is possible to develop sustainable logistics policies, to reduce the transport intensity of an economy by altering the freight modal split (i.e. subsidize trains etc.) or by improving vehicle utilization (better ratio of FTK), and to reveal externalities.

Means of regulations that are already in place are, among others: ISO 14000 to accredit companies’ environmental programs (“The ISO 14000 family of International Standards on environmental management”), EURO emission standards (strict control of emissions from diesel-engined heavy goods vehicles (HGVs)) as well as various waste avoidance and management laws.

Governments could detect and publish carbon footprints in supply chains and use this information to tax polluters which means applying the “polluter-pays principle”. On the other hand, it is argued that forcing the polluting company to pay for all the environmental damage does not necessarily maximize economic welfare and lower the ecological impact. There is also no guarantee that governments will use “green” taxes to finance environmental projects.

Summary and outlook

So what can we, as diplomats of UN member states, do in order to advocate Green Logistics? Let us compare different approaches and find suitable means of regulating logistics. There is a tremendous hidden potential to lower greenhouse gas emissions and fight global warming.

Chair introduction

Dearest delegates,


My name is Hagen Schlotzhauer. I'm a senior at the Stedelijk Gymnasium Leiden.  I'll attend University Leiden next year, studying Japanese, Law and Management.

I have visited about 12 MUNs in the past two years and I'm very happy to end my high school-MUN career at the Baltic Model United Nation Conference of this year. I have been the court coordinator and President of the ICC at LeMUN 2010, Prosecutor at HagaMUN 2010, I have chaired many other committees and, of course, been where you are right now, preparing as a delegate to represent a UN member state.

Due to the finals I have been quite busy. Now, however, it would be a pleasure to help you with anything at all. My e-mail address is: h.schlotzhauer(at)gmail.com.

Kind Regards,

Hagen Schlotzhauer

 

Guest speaker: Balkan Cetinkaya

Balkan Cetinkaya studied Business Engineering at the University of Technology in Berlin and at the Berkeley University, Haas School of Business, mainly specialised in logistics, supply chain management, organisation, and leadership until 2001. He holds a Masters in Business and Engineering (MSc.). Afterwards Balkan Cetinkaya was engaged as an international consultant at KPMG Consulting in international projects in Singapore, USA, and across Europe from 2001 to 2005. Starting 2006 at the University of Technology Balkan Cetinkaya leads a European Commission project focussing on best practices in logistics (www.bestLog.org) and is doing his PhD about sustainable supply chain management. He is also the project coordinator of Germany’s well known study on trends and strategies in logistics, a study conducted regularly since 1988. As Balkan Cetinkaya emphasizes the alignment of research with practice, he is further active as a consultant and lecturer at ITCL (International Transfer Center for Logistic) and supports several companies and local governmental organisations in Germany in logistics aspects.

Chair introduction

Dear delegates,

it is an honor and it will be a pleasure for me to serve as one of this year’s Chairs of the EC, the Environmental Committee. My name is Kai Budde. I am 21 years old and currently pursuing my studies of interdisciplinary sciences at Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich, Switzerland.

Besides that, I play the violin and like to ride my road bike. I also enjoy jogging, reading books and discovering new countries and cultures.

During the course of my life, I was pleased to have had the opportunity of attending several MUNs throughout Germany and Switzerland. Two years ago, I chaired the General Assembly as the President of the GA. At last year’s conference I was able to experience the work in the ECOSOC as one of their presidents.

Let me assure you that we won’t spare any effort to make BALMUN 2010 an unforgettable event which will leave us as more aware and confident world citizens. I promise you that this year’s conference is going to be another great experience for all of us.

If you have any questions regarding my person or the topic of the EC, please feel free to email me at kai.budde(at)balmun.de.

Yours sincerely,

Kai Budde