Management of Environmental Issues in Logistics: Current Status and Future Potential

Management of Environmental Issues in Logistics: Current Status and Future PotentialAuthor(s): PAUL R. MURPHY, RICHARD F. POIST and CHARLES D. BRAUNSCHWIEGSource: Transportation Journal, Vol. 34, No. 1 (FALL 1994), pp. 48-56Published by: Penn State University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20713224 .

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PAUL R. MURPHY RICHARD F. POIST CHARLES D. BRAUNSCHWIEG

Management of Environmental Issues

in Logistics: Current Status and

Future Potential

Environmental issues involve matters of pub lic concern which can have a negative impact on the natural or physical environment. Envi ronmentalism has been characterized as the most significant force shaping the economy, as well as the most important issue facing busi ness during the 1990s. Some corporate execu

tives, in fact, believe that the 1990s will be the "decade of the environment."1

A similar sentiment pervades the logistics discipline. Foster has argued that "[f]or logis tics, the environment will be the issue of the 1990s."2 Likewise, according to Cooke,"[t]he issue of the times for logistics managers will be to handle the burgeoning environmental restric tions imposed on transportation and distribu tion."3 Similarly, Cavinato suggests that public policy in the 1990s is likely to emphasize envi ronmental and social considerations, rather than economic ones.4

The growing importance of environmental ism is suggested to have two major impacts on

logistics management: 1) a broadening of the

scope of logistics, and 2) an influence on the

way logistics managers do their jobs.5 With

respect to broadening the scope of logistics, the

logistics discipline has generally focused on

transportation, warehousing, inventory manage ment, and so on, from the perspective of for ward distribution, i.e., producer-to-consumer movement of products. Because of environ

mentalism, the concept of "reverse" distribu

tion, that is, consumer-to-producer movements,

has become more prevalent. In fact, the Council of Logistics Management recently sponsored a research project focusing on "reverse logistics", which is defined as "...all issues relating to

logistics activities carried out in source reduc tion, recycling, substitution, reuse of materials, and disposal."6

And, as pointed out above, environmentalism will have a tremendous influence on the way that

logistics managers do their jobs. For example, concerns about solid waste disposal have caused firms to develop more efficient packaging and to

recycle packaging materials. In addition, conges tion problems in major cities have caused some

companies to restructure their distribution sys tems so that their products are being transported at off-peak (i.e., less congested) times.

A review of the literature shows a good job of delineating, and responding to, the various environmental issues facing the contemporary logistics manager. The literature, however, tends to be primarily anecdotal in nature, that

is, presenting descriptions of how one or sever al companies and governmental organizations have dealt with particular environmental con cerns. Muller, for example, has described how Proctor and Gamble link quality principles to the management of solid waste products such as disposable plastic containers.7 Likewise, Scelsi has discussed Canon's program for recy cling the disposable toner cartridges which come from copiers, laser printers, and fax machines.8 Others such as Pohlen and Farris have described the logistics channels and issues involved in plastics recycling from a private as

well as a public perspective.9 While many of these case-like approaches

provide valuable information on a variety of environmental issues, such approaches are unable to describe the policies, practices, and

strategies of logistics managers in the general

Mr. Murphy, EM-AST&L, is associate professor of busi ness logistics, John Carroll University, University Heights, Ohio 44118; Mr. Poist, EM-AST&L, is professor of trans

portation and logistics, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa

50011-2063; and Mr. Braunschwieg is export supervisor, Texas Instruments, Dallas, Texas 75265.



1994 ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES 49

business community. Such information is best collected through survey research; yet there have been relatively few empirical studies of a survey nature dealing with environmental issues in

logistics. In an effort to at least partially fill this litera

ture void, this article will discuss the results of an empirical study focusing on environmental issues in logistics. The following research ques tions will be addressed:

1. What is the importance of selected environ mental issues relating to logistical operations? 2. What impact will environmental issues have on the management of logistical func tions during the next five years? 3. What strategies are currently being used to

manage and respond to environmental issues in logistics? Which of these strategies are viewed as most effective for managing and

responding to these environmental concerns?

Methodology

The information in this article is drawn from a mail survey of members of the Council of

Logistics Management (CLM). Because the com

pany personnel most knowledgeable about envi ronmental issues in logistics are likely to be in

positions of upper and middle management, the

study focused on those members with job titles at the director level or above. Also, only members from manufacturing and merchandising firms located in the United States were included. Based

upon these criteria, 450 members were randomly selected from a recent CLM membership roster to participate in the mail survey.

There were two mailings of the survey, both

consisting of a cover letter, a copy of the sur

vey, and a postage-paid return envelope. Two of the surveys were returned as undeliverable, reducing the sampling frame to 448. A total of 135 responses were received, of which 133

were usable. This produced an effective

response rate of 29.7 percent (133/448). Although a 30 percent response rate is con

sidered good for mail surveys, there is certainly the possibility of nonresponse bias. The litera ture has suggested that a comparison of the first and second wave of respondents can provide valuable information concerning nonresponse bias.10 The rationale behind such an approach is that the later respondents are more like nonre

spondents than are the earlier respondents.11

Because the two survey mailings were con ducted about three weeks apart, the authors test ed for nonresponse bias by comparing responses received within 25 days of the first mailing to those received after 25 days. This comparison revealed statistically significant differences on three variables. Given that the survey collected information on nearly 95 separate variables, the

finding of three statistically significant differ ences suggests that nonresponse bias is not a

major problem in this study. A demographic profile of respondents and

their organizations reveals that the typical respondent has been in their job for nine years. Nearly 95 percent classified themselves as either middle- or upper-level managers, with 65

percent representing manufacturing firms and 35 percent representing merchandisers (e.g., wholesalers, retailers, and distributors). There was an enormous range of revenues of $3 mil

lion, while the largest had revenues of over $100 billion. On the whole, respondents tended to be from "large" firms, as approximately 80

percent of the responding companies have annual revenues of greater than or equal to $1 billion. This is not surprising since the mem

bership of the CLM generally is skewed towards higher revenue companies.

Results

1. What is the importance of selected envi ronmental issues relating to logistical opera tions? Respondents used a five-point scale,

where 0 = no importance and 4 = maximum

importance, to describe the importance of eleven environmental issues relating to logisti cal operations. These environmental issues were identified by means of a thorough litera ture search as well as discussions with logistics practitioners. While there are relatively many environmental issues (e.g., population control, genetic diversity, natural resources, pollution) affecting modern society, the literature suggests that logistics managers are best able to influ ence those involving pollution, congestion, waste disposal, and natural resource consump tion. As a result, the eleven issues evaluated in this study tend to fit into these four categories.

Results for these issues, presented in Table 1, indicate that the two most important are haz ardous waste disposal and solid waste disposal. These issues were perceived as being of "great"



50 TRANSPORTATION JOURNAL Fall

or "maximum" importance by 66 percent and 64 percent of respondents, respectively. Per ceived as next in importance were reducing water pollution, reducing air pollution, and

energy conservation. One explanation for the

importance of hazardous waste disposal is that the U.S. Department of Transportation has

mandated that companies must be able to docu ment that their employees have been properly trained in the handling and/or transportation of hazardous materials. Failure to do so could result in fines, civil liability judgments, and

higher insurance premiums.12 Much of the concern with solid waste dispos

al comes from packaging materials. Part of the

challenge for logisticians in dealing with pack aging waste is that requirements for the dispos al, reduction, and/or elimination of this waste are often left up to local or state agencies. Nonetheless, growing awareness of the nega tive consequences of packaging waste ensures that logisticians will have to address this issue, now and in the future.

The information in Table 1 indicates that the two least important environmental issues are

reducing congestion and efficient land usage. At first glance, congestion's ranking as the least important environmental issue appears surprising. For example, Bowersox and col

leagues state that "[p]erhaps the most signifi cant aspects of environmental and infrastruc ture impacts upon logistics are the looming lim itations of congestion."13 In addition, Cooke asserts that transportation congestion is one of the two major ways in which environmental

concerns will influence how logistics managers perform their jobs.14 However, the finding that

congestion is an environmental issue of low

perceived importance supports previous work

by Rao and his colleagues, who found conges tion to be a relatively unimportant issue for

logistics managers.15 T-tests of mean equality were performed in

an effort to learn whether there were statistically significant relationships between the eleven environmental issues and the demographic char acteristics of respondent's job title, respondent's years at his/her present employer, type of firm, and firm revenues. As shown in Table 2, re

spondent's years at the present employer and firm type show the largest number of statistical

ly significant differences. For all six significant variables involving years at the present employ er, greater importance was assigned by employ ees with more than ten years of service. Given the generally positive relationship between firm tenure and age, these results appear consistent with previous reports that older persons tend to

identify more strongly with environmental con cerns than do younger persons.16 With respect to firm type, manufacturers

assigned greater importance to raw materials conservation and reduced odor pollution, while

energy conservation, land usage, and reduced

congestion were more important to merchandis ers. These results, for the most part, can be

explained by differences in the nature of opera tions and locational patterns between manufac turers and merchandisers.

2. What impact will environmental issues

Table 1. Importance of Environmental Issues Percentage of Respondents*

No Slight Moderate Great Maximum

Importance Importance Importance Importance Importance1*

Hazardous waste disposal 7.1 11.9 15.1 21.4 44.4

Solid waste disposal 3.9 3.9 28.1 32.0 32.0

Reducing water pollution 3.2 15.1 23.8 34.1 23.8

Reducing air pollution 3.9 17.3 28.3 31.5 18.9

Reducing odor pollution 11.9 14.3 36.5 23.8 13.5

Reducing noise pollution 10.6 21.1 38.2 20.3 9.8

Reducing visual pollution 6.3 21.1 36.7 27.3 8.6

Energy conservation .8 10.0 40.8 40.8 7.7

Conservation of raw materials and minerals 4.7 17.1 38.8 34.1 5.4

Efficient land usage 10.2 24.2 29.7 32.0 3.9

Reducing congestion 9.5 24.6 42.9 19.8 3.2

a: Numbers may not sum to 100 percent because of rounding. b: Ranked according to the highest percentages in the "maximum importance" category.




Table 2. Summary of Significant Relationships Between Environmental Issues and

Demographics8_ Years at present employer (<10; >10)b Type of firm (Manufacturer; merchandiser)

Six significant differences identified: Five significant differences identified:

Reduced air pollution (>10)c Energy conservation (merch) Reduced water pollution (>10) Raw materials conservation (manu) Reduced odor pollution (>10) Land usage (merch) Reduced noise pollution (>10) Reduced congestion (merch) Solid waste disposal (>10) Reduced odor pollution (manu) Hazardous waste disposal (>10)

Firm revenues (< $1 billion; > $1 billion) Respondent's job title (Mgr, Direc, Vice-Pres, Pres)

No significant differences identified No significant differences identified

a: Significant at the .05 (or lower) level b: Groups being compared c: Indicates which group assigns higher importance to the particular variable

have on the management of logistical functions during the next five years? Respondents used a

four-point scale, ranging from 0 = no impact to 3 = significant impact, to evaluate the impact of environmental issues on the management of fourteen logistical functions during the next five years. Results for this question, appearing in Table 3, indicate that environmental issues

will have the greatest impact on the logistical functions of salvage and scrap disposal and

packaging, followed by transportation and return goods handling. The strong showing of

salvage and scrap disposal supports the find

ings of Table 1, in which solid waste disposal ranked as the second most important environ

mental issue relating to logistical operations.

The fact that salvage and scrap disposal, packaging, and return goods handling emerge as three of the most heavily impacted logistical functions lends credence to the notion that environmentalism will continue to affect the

way that logisticians do their jobs. For exam

ple, return goods handling is associated with the previously discussed concept of reverse

logistics. Return goods handling can present challenges to logistics managers because many companies still have inefficiencies in the for ward distribution of their products. In addition, Lambert and Stock have pointed out that return

goods handling often increases both the com

plexity and costs of transporting, storing, and

handling products.17

Table 3. Impact of Environmental Issues on Logistical Functions

Function

Percentage of Respondents" No Slight Moderate Significant

Impact Impact Impact Impact"

Salvage and scrap disposal

Packaging

Transportation Return goods handling International logistics

Warehousing

Purchasing

Facility location

Materials handling Customer service

Inventory control

Order processing Production scheduling Demand forecasting

1.5

1.5

1.5

7.6

15.5

3.0

7.6

18.9

6.9

31.3

23.8

37.4

34.8

37.4

7.6

9.1

15.9

28.8

30.2

32.6

19.8

23.5

32.1

32.1

41.5

42.7

48.5

42.7

20.5

28.8

40.9

33.3

25.6

36.4

45.8

33.3

40.5

22.1

30.0

15.3

13.6

17.6

70.5

60.6

41.7

30.3

28.7

28.0

26.7

24.2

20.6

14.5

4.6

4.6

3.0

2.3

a: Numbers may not sum to 100 percent because of rounding. b: Ranked according to the highest percentage of respondents in the "significant impact" category.




As pointed out earlier, packaging as well as

salvage and scrap disposal are closely linked

through concerns of how to dispose of packag ing waste. Certainly, legislation aimed at shift

ing responsibilities for the disposal of packag ing waste, such as Germany's law that shippers have responsibility for the disposal of transport packaging, would have important ramifications for the logisticians in the U.S.18

The information in Table 3 also indicates that inventory control, order processing, pro duction scheduling, and demand forecasting should be relatively unaffected by environmen tal issues into the near future. In fact, these are the only four functions with fewer than five

percent of the respondents indicating the "sig nificant impact" category.

As was the case in the previous section, t tests of mean equality were performed to learn about possible relationships between environ mentalism's impact on the fourteen logistical functions and selected demographic character istics. Results from these comparisons, present ed in Table 4, show statistically significant relationships for all four demographic vari ables. However, the greatest number of signifi cant differences (five) involves the respon dent's years at his/her present employer. Em

ployees with more than ten years of service indicated that each of the five logistical func tions identified in Table 4 would be more heav

ily impacted by environmental concerns than did their counterparts with ten or fewer years at their present employer.

3. What strategies are currently being used to manage and respond to environmental issues

in logistics? Which of these strategies are viewed as most effective for responding to these environmental concerns? Using a scale of "cur

rently use", "plan to use", and "do not use", re

spondents evaluated a number of different

strategies which might be used to manage and

respond to environmental issues in logistics. These strategies were drawn primarily from

suggestions appearing in the logistics literature, as well as discussions with practitioners. The results, appearing in Table 5, indicate that recy cling materials, reducing consumption, and

reusing materials are the three most common

strategies for dealing with environmental issues in logistics.

The findings on recycling and reuse support earlier results, which found salvage and scrap disposal to be the logistical function most

impacted by environmental concerns. Quite simply, the recycling and reuse of materials are two possible options for the salvage and scrap disposal function.

The least used strategy, with 72 percent of

respondents in the "do not use" category, is to

encourage greater governmental involvement or regulation. The intensity of respondents' convictions on this issue are evident in the fol

lowing unsolicited comments: "No! No!"; "Crazy question...should be discouraged'', and "We lobby against increased regulation."

As shown Table 5 under the "plan to use" column, redesign of logistical system compo nents and increased education and training are the two strategies most likely to be added in the near future to deal with environmental issues. These strategies were cited by 41 percent and

Table 4. Summary of Significant Relationships Between Logistical Functions and

Demographics8_ Years at present employer (<10; >10)b Type of firm (Manufacturer; Merchandiser)

Five significant differences identified: Three significant differences identified:

Order processing (>10)c Warehousing (merch)

Facility location (>10) Purchasing (manu) Customer service (>10) International logistics (manu) Production scheduling (>10) International logistics (>10)

Firm revenues (< $1 billion; > $1 billion) Respondent's job title (Mgr, Direc, Vice-Pres, Pres)

Two significant differences identified: Two significant differences identified:

Customer service (>$1B) Demand forecasting (Mgr, Direc) Return goods handling (> $1B) Production scheduling (Mgr, Direc)

a: Significant at the .05 (or lower) level b: Groups being compared c: Indicates which group assigns greater impact to the particular variable




Table 5. Use of Strategies far Managing and Responding to Environmental Issues_ Percentage of Respondents*

Strategy Currently useb Plan to use Do not use Recycle materials whenever possible 85.5 8.4 6.1 Reduce consumption whenever possible 81.5 10.8 7.7 Reuse materials whenever possible 74.2 13.6 12.1 Conduct environmental audits 56.1 18.2 25.8 Publicize environmental efforts/accomplishments 53.8 21.2 25.0

Increase education and training of company personnel 50.8 36.4 12.9

Redesign logistical system components for greater environmental efficiency 43.5 40.5 16.0

Promote industry cooperative efforts 41.5 23.1 35.4 Use outside or third parties to manage environmental issues 29.2 10.8 60.0

Reject suppliers who lack environmental concerns 28.7 27.9 43.4

Hire/promote more environmentally conscious personnel 24.0 23.2 52.8

Encourage greater governmental involvement/regulation 15.2 12.9 72.0

a: Numbers may not sum to 100 percent because of rounding. b: Ranked according to the highest percentages in the "currently use" category.

36 percent of respondents, respectively. Other

strategies likely to be added include rejecting suppliers who lack environmental concerns,

hiring and promoting more environmentally conscious personnel, and promoting industry cooperative efforts. Each of these strategies were mentioned for planned usage by approxi mately 25 percent of respondents.

The "redesign of logistical system compo nents" strategy again reinforces the idea that environmentalism will have a profound impact on the way logistics managers do their jobs.

While some of the redesigning should be fairly predictable (e.g., improving the recyclability and/or biodegradability of packaging), others may be quite unusual. Wal-Mart, for instance,

has recently opened a prototype store of the future. "Predictable" aspects of its design include the use of skylights to help reduce ener

gy consumption. A more unique attribute of the store is that die building's design facilitates its conversion to apartments in the event that Wal

Mart ever closes it.19

Respondents also were asked to identify the two strategies they consider to be most effec tive for managing and responding to environ

mental issues. The results for this question, appearing in Table 6, show that the three most effective strategies, by far, are recycling mate

rials, increasing education and training, and

reducing consumption. In contrast, the least effective strategies

Table 6. Most Effective Strategies for Dealing with Environmental Issues_

Percentage of respondents indicating "most effective"

Strategy and "2nd most effective"

Recycle materials 42.0

Increase education and training 40.1

Reduce consumption 37.2

Reuse materials 15.8

Redesign logistical system components 15.8

Conduct environmental audits 13.1

Promote industry cooperative efforts 10.5

Publicize environmental efforts/accomplishments 7.0

Reject suppliers 6.3

Hire/promote environmentally conscious personnel 6.3

Use outside or third parties 4.3

Encourage greater government involvement 1.8

Sums to approximately 200 percent because respondents were allowed to pick the two most effective strategies.




involve encouraging greater governmental in volvement and using outside or third parties, providing one explanation of why these tech

niques are rated relatively low in Table 5 in terms of current and planned usage. Somewhat

surprising, however, is the rather low effective ness attributable to third parties, given a 1993

study sponsored by CLM which suggests that

third-party service can be "an effective way to

quickly create a logistics service network and

gain environmental expertise."20 Table 7 contains information comparing the

current usage rankings of the twelve strategies

with their effectiveness rankings. The

Spearman coefficient of rank correlation of .84 is statistically significant at the .05 level, indi

cating minimal ranking differences between the

usage and effectiveness data. Indeed, recycling materials is the top-ranked usage strategy as well as the top-ranked effectiveness strategy, while greater government involvement is low est ranked for both usage and effectiveness.

The largest ranking discrepancy appearing in Table 7, four positions, is for increased educa tion and training, which ranked sixth in usage and second in effectiveness. This discrepancy

Table 7. Comparison of Usage and Effectiveness Results8_ Strategy_Usage ranking_Effectiveness ranking

Recycle materials 1 1

Reduce consumption 2 3

Reuse materials 3 4.5

Conduct environmental audits 4 6

Publicize environmental efforts 5 8

Increase education and training 6 2

Redesign logistical system 7 4.5

Promote industry cooperative efforts 8 7

Use outside or third parties 9 11

Reject suppliers 10 9.5

Hire/promote environmentally conscious personnel 11 9.5

Encourage greater government involvement 12 12

a: Spearman coefficient of rank correlation = .84, significant at the .05 level.

Table 8. Summary of Significant Relationships Between Logistical Strategy Usage and

Demographics8_ Years at present employer (<10; >10)b Type of firm (Manufacturer; Merchandiser)

Six significant differences identified: One significant difference identified:

Increase education and training (>10)c Promote industry cooperation (manu) Greater government involvement (>10) Publicize environmental accomplishments (>10) Promote industry cooperation (>10) Conduct environmental audits (>10) Hire environmentally conscious

(>10)_ Firm revenues (< $1 billion; > $1 billion) Respondent's job title (Mgr, Direc, Vice-Pres, Pres)

Eight significant differences identified: One significant difference identified:

Reuse materials (>$1B) Publicize environmental accomplishments (Mgr, Direc)

Redesign logistical systems (> $1B) Reject suppliers (>$1B) Increase education and training (>$1B) Publicize environmental accomplishments (>$1B) Promote industrial cooperation (>$1B) Conduct environmental audits (>$1B) Use third parties (>$1B)

a: Significant at the .05 (or lower) level b: Groups being compared c: Indicates which group is more likely to use the particular strategy




between usage and effectiveness provides one

explanation of why 36 percent of the respon dents (see Table 5) said that they plan to use this technique in the future for managing envi ronmental issues.

T-tests of mean equality were conducted to learn about possible relationships between strat

egy usage and selected demographic character istics. The results from these comparisons are

presented in Table 8, and indicate that the great est number of significant differences are found with firm revenues (eight) and respondents' years at their present employer (six). All eight significant strategies associated with firm size are more likely to be used by organizations with revenues of greater than $1 billion. In general, these findings are consistent with a European study which suggests that larger firms are more

likely to address environmental issues than are smaller firms.21 Likewise, each of the six signifi cant strategies associated with years at the pres ent employer is used more often by employees with more than ten years of service.

Conclusions and Implications

This article reports the findings of a survey to assess the management of environmental issues in logistics. More specifically, the study focuses upon the major issues, impacts, and

strategies relating to environmentalism as per ceived and practiced by U.S. logistics execu tives. The key findings of the study can be summarized as follows:

Major Issues

Respondents perceived the most important environmental issues relating to logistics as hazardous waste disposal and solid waste dis

posal. Viewed as next in importance were issues relating to reduced water pollution, reduced air pollution, and reduced odor pollu tion. Perceived as least important were environ

mental issues relating to reduced congestion and efficient land usage.

Major Impacts

Respondents reported that environmental issues will have the greatest impact on the

logistical functions of salvage and scrap dispos al and packaging, followed with somewhat less

impact on transportation and return goods han

dling. In contrast, it appears that the functions

of inventory control, order processing, produc tion scheduling, and demand forecasting should be relatively unaffected by environmental issues into the near future.

Major Strategies

Practitioners indicated that recycling materi

als, reducing consumption, and reusing materi als are the three most commonly used strategies for dealing with and responding to environmen tal issues in logistics. The least used strategy, by far, related to encouraging greater govern mental involvement or regulation.

In terms of planned usage, the strategies most

likely to be added in the near future were

redesign of logistics system components, and increased education and training. Other strate

gies likely to be added included rejecting suppli ers who lack environmental concerns, hiring and

promoting environmentally conscious personnel, and promoting industry cooperative efforts.

Asked to identify the most effective strate

gies for managing and responding to environ mental issues, logistics executives cited recy cling materials, increased education and train

ing, and reducing consumption as by far the most effective. Perceived as the least effective

strategies were encouragement of greater gov ernmental involvement and the use of outside or third parties.

Analysis of the relationship between strategy usage and demographic characteristics indicated that the greatest number of statistically signifi cant differences were associated with firm size and respondents' years with their present em

ployer. In general, respondents from larger firms and those with longer firm tenure reported greater strategy usage than did respondents from smaller firms and with less company tenure.

These results and others presented in this article have a number of implications for logis tics executives. Perhaps most important, the results empirically highlight the major func tional impacts associated with the "greening" of logistics as well as the major efforts being undertaken to respond to environmental con cerns. As such, the results represent useful benchmarks for comparison with what other

logistics practitioners are thinking and doing in this area. Based upon such comparisons, refine

ments and changes in views as well as strategic responses may be indicated.

Overall the results yield relatively few surpris




es. Probably the biggest surprise related to the

relatively low importance attached to the prob lem of congestion and the low regard generally attached to the strategy of using outside or third

parties to manage environmental issues. Some what mitigating these surprises were several

findings pertaining to demographic relation

ships. For example, merchandising firms, which are more likely to locate in central urban areas, attached significantly greater importance to the issue of congestion than did manufacturing firms. Likewise, firms of over $1 billion in annu al revenues reported significantly greater usage of the third party strategy than did smaller firms.

Otherwise, the results were largely as expect ed. The major issues and impacts identified in the study generally were consistent with those

mentioned and speculated upon in the logistics literature. Likewise, the most effective and wide

ly used strategies for responding to environmen tal issues are similar to those most commonly reported in case studies and anecdotal reports.

In general, the most popular strategies are nei ther surprising nor revolutionary, but rather tend to be well known and practical. For these strate

gies to be effective, however, a number of guid ing principles from the environmental literature can be offered: 1) the need for top management support and involvement,22 2) making environ

mental considerations and concerns part of any decision,23 and 3) taking a proactive rather than a reactive stance in formulating and implementing environmental policy and strategy.24

It is hoped that this study will serve as a stimulus for further research regarding the

management of environmental issues in logis tics. Certainly more empirical research is need ed to supplement the plethora of anecdotal evi dence. For example, comparative studies of

strategic responses to environmental issues by logistics practitioners in other nations, as well as with managers in other functional areas, would appear to offer promise. Similarly, more research is needed to identify the costs and

optimal procedures for operationalizing strate

gy alternatives. In conclusion, environmentalism has been

characterized as one of the most significant issues facing contemporary logistics managers. Likewise, the need to respond to environmental concerns is expected to increase in the future.

Fully 80 percent of respondents in this study indicated that they expected the importance of

environmental issues to increase over the next five years. Accordingly, the study results con firm the notion that environmentalism is no

longer a peripheral concern or fad, but rather an issue that will remain at the forefront of the

logistics discipline for the remainder of the 1990s and beyond.

ENDNOTES 1 D. Kirkpatrick, "Environmentalism: The New

Crusade," Fortune, February 12, 1990, pp. 44-51. 2 T.A. Foster, "An Environmental Impact Statement," Distribution, January 1992, p. 4.

3 J.A. Cooke, "The Environment: Your Challenge for the

'90s," Traffic Management, July 1991, p. 32. 4 J. Cavinato, "Reading the Regulatory Tea Leaves,"

Distribution, January 1991, pp. 68-70. 5 E.J. Muller, "The Quest for a Quality Environment," Distribution, January 1992, pp. 32-36.

6 J.R. Stock, Reverse Logistics, Oak Brook, IL: Council of Logistics Management, 1992, p. A-3.

7 Muller, 1992. 8 P. Scelsi, "Cleaning the Earth Through Logistics,"

Distribution, November 1991, pp. 56-58. 9 T.L. Pohlen and M.T. Farris II, Reverse Logistics in

Plastics Recycling," International Journal of Physical Distribution and Logistics Management, Vol. 22, No. 7, 1992, pp. 35-47.

10 D.M. Lambert and T.C. Harrington, "Measuring Nonresponse Bias in Customer Service Mail Surveys," Journal of Business Logistics, Vol. 11, No. 2,1990, pp. 5-25. 11 SJ. Armstrong and T.J. Overton, "Estimating Nonresponse Bias in Mail Surveys," Journal of Marketing Research, August 1977, pp. 396-402.

12 T. Andel, "Are Your Hazmat People Trained? Prove It!," Transportation and Distribution, October 1992, pp. 28-30. 13 D. Bowersox, P. Daugherty, C. Droge, R. Germain, and D. Rogers, Logistical Excellence: It's Not Business as Usual,

Burlington, MA: Digital Press, 1992, p. 168. 14 Cooke, 1991.

15 K. Rao, W. Grenoble, and R. Young, 'Traffic Congestion and JIT," Journal of Business Logistics, Vol. 12, No. 1, 1991, pp. 105-122.

16 Kirkpatrick, 1990.

17 D.M. Lambert and J.R. Stock, Strategic Logistics Management, Third edition, Home wood, IL: Irwin, 1993,

Chapter 1. 18 P.M. Byrne and A. Deeb, "Logistics Must Meet the

'Green' Challenge," Transportation and Distribution,

February 1993, pp. 33-37. 19 B. Ortega, "Wal-Mart Store Comes in Colors, but is All

Green," The Wall Street Journal, June 11,1993, pp. Bl, BIO. 20 R. Kopicki, M. Berg, and L. Legg, Reuse and Recycling

?Reverse Logistics Opportunities, Oak Brook, DL: Council of

Logistics Management, 1993, p. 195. 21 J. Szymankiewicz, "Going Green: The Logistics

Dilemma," Logistics Information Management, Vol. 6, No. 3, 1993, pp. 36-43.

22 M. Zetlin, "The Greening of Corporate America,"

Management Review, June 1990, pp. 10-17. 23

Kirkpatrick, 1990. 24

Kopicki, Berg, and Legg, 1993, Chapter 10.



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Management of Environmental Issues in Logistics: Current Status and Future Potential