Overview
Sustainability in logistics is becoming an increasingly important issue. Especially for the agricultural sector, the Green2 Project pursues the issue of sustainability and promotes active behaviour of German and Dutch logistics service providers and companies in the food industry.
The Green2 or "green squared" project tackles environmental issues through four work packages (see methodology). The project is funded by the Interreg IV A programme in the region of the Rhine-Maas-North.
The aim of the project is to support producers, manufacturers, marketers and logistics providers in implementing a sustainable corporate strategy and in the development of green supply chains. Both transport and storage processes are to be made environmentally sustainable. To this end, environmental relief potentials are to be identified and utilized within the considered supply chains. This includes mainly the reduction of energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.
The work packages are:
- Transport optimization
- Warehouse optimization
- Energy efficiency
- E-marketplace for cold store capacities
Transport optimization:
In Work Package 1, external transportation flows are analysed and elaborated together with the partner companies in order to generate greener transport options that cause less greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Incoming and outgoing flows of goods are examined carefully. The transparency of the traffic is being developed in the border region. Thus, the project aims at establishing so-called "green lines" which can also be used by companies with small transport volumes.
In particular, by shifting the flows of goods from road to rail and inland waterways, or by the containerized transport in combined transport chains, goods can be transported in an environmentally friendly way. The aim is to make the transport processes ecologically sustainable and efficient.
Shippers are given the possibility in the context of this project when there are advantages for them by shifting from transport volumes. In addition, synergies are to be developed by building a partner network.
Warehouse optimization:
Here, the in-house transport and storage processes are analysed in order to achieve a reduction in energy consumption with organizational and technical measures. Proven and well-established environmental measures and the use of innovative techniques are reviewed to reduce energy costs for storage and internal transport. A guide is designed to assist companies in employing the efficient measures for sustainable storag.
Energy efficiency:
The SWK competence center of Niederrhein University works together with the partners on the issue of energy efficiency in a company-wide energy network, for instance, by means of an absorption chiller. It examines technical measures for energy and CO2 savings. The results of this investigation will be a catalogue of measures for technical, economic and environmental evaluations in order to realize the savings in storage, production and cold storage facilities through integrative methods and technical optimization.
E-marketplace:
Here, together with the partners, the Institute GEMIT examined the applicability of a capacity market for chilled and frozen products. In this case, a market from the transport sector was included and examine to see whether there was potential for a