As with many environmental initiatives, green logistics strategies can be as much about financial savings as they are about saving the earth. With the soaring cost of fuel and transportation's dramatic impact on the environment, companies have no choice but to look at logistics as a place to go green.

It takes about 35 billion gallons of diesel fuel to deliver goods by truck and rail each year, which generates about 350 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and accounts for 20 percent of all energy consumed, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's SmartWay Transport Partnership. Truck and rail idling is responsible for about 20 percent of the CO2 emissions load.

"There are a lot of cost savings to be achieved," says Edgar Blanco, a professor at the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics in Cambridge, Mass. "In this economy, it makes good fiscal sense to improve fuel economy, and, there is a lot more attention being paid to energy use and carbon footprints."

Major US companies, including retail giant Wal-Mart and SC Johnson, the manufacturer of hundreds of popular household cleaning products, are leading the trend to implement dramatic energy savings through their green logistics programs. In 2006 alone, Wal-Mart prevented 678,954 tons of carbon dioxide, 38 tons of nitrogen oxide and 1,539 tons of particulate matter from entering the atmosphere through a combination of efforts, such as the installation of Auxiliary Power Units (APUs) in diesel trucks to warm or cool the cabin on breaks.

Similarly, SC Johnson eliminated 1,882 tons of greenhouse gases, cut fuel usage by 168,000 gallons ,and saved approximately $1.6 million in 2007 through its Truckload Utilization Project, which combines multiple customer orders and products in individual trucks for maximum efficiency.

Fortunately, you don't have to be a retail giant to achieve such dramatic savings, Blanco says. His team has helped companies of all sizes identify ways to reduce their carbon footprint through more efficient logistic strategies, and studies show there are many more companies out there looking to follow suit.

Ninety-two percent of U.S. fleet executives predict fuel prices will stay high or even rise in 2008, according to eyefortransport, a global provider of logistics and transportation information and services.

Its 2008 "Fuel Management for Fleets" report also revealed 76 percent of those surveyed rated environmental concerns as one of the most important factors in their fuel management decisions, a factor they expect to grow in significance during the next three years.

"These results were not surprising, but the consensus numbers were still higher than expected over environmental issues," says Katharine O'Reilly, eyefortransport's director of environmental research. "The fact that more than two-thirds of our respondents recognize the impact that environmental issues will have on their operations in the near future is encouraging."

Xerox Takes Baby Steps

As much as 75 percent of a company's carbon footprint can come from transportation and logistics, making it a logical target for green initiatives. As many companies have learned, there are no grand gestures when it comes to reducing fuel consumption. The most successful initiatives instead rely on small common sense programs that deliver incremental results, such as reduced idling or more direct truck routes.

These kinds of efforts are easy to implement and require little upfront investment but they can translate into big savings, notes Tony Rossi, Xerox's manager of programs and operational support.