The Importance of Logistics

The essay will discuss the concepts and the importance of logistics in our global word. It will then move to the recent climate change and its impact on our world with particular reference to logistics and GHG emissions relationship. The write up will follow up with the EPA and other agencies reactions and discuss the impact and the changes in the logistics management by the companies around the world.

SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT

Supply Chain Management refers to the flows of processes though which the goods are moved from the customer order to the acquisition of raw materials, supply, production, and distribution of the goods to the relevant customer. It basically refers to the management of the activities for the collections of raw materials to the production at the factories to the distribution of these goods. The manager must coordinate with all of these pieces in a cordial manner for the effective management of the supply chain (Mentzer, 2001).

LOGISTICS MANAGEMENT

Logistics Management is widely known concept in the global world. All companies rely on the logistics for the efficient flow of the goods and services. For Example: Industrial manufactures rely heavily on these logistics for the transportation of the mass-produced items. At the same time, the consumer goods manufactures want their goods to be delivered to the outlets and warehouses before the customer calls for it. Therefore, Logistics management has now evolved into one of the most important links in the supply chain process (DHL, 2010).

Logistics refers to the part of the supply chain management that plans, implements and processes the flow of the goods and services from the source to the end consumer. It includes both thee forward and reverse flow as well as the storage of the goods. The vital elements of this part include all modes of transportation, inventory control and storage, packing and flow of information. Figure 1 shows the costs and investment in different sectors' logistics departments. The logistics has overall improved the cost, competence and consistency in the supply chain process.

RECENT CLIMATE CHANGE

Climatic Change takes place over millions to thousands of years. It is a statistical shift of weather and climate that takes place, changing the environment of the earth. When analyzed over hundreds of years, the climatic conditions have patches of climate having similar qualities and properties. The shift from one climate to another climate takes place slowly and gradually in order to maintain the ecological system. The biggest climatic change that is being anticipated these days and is mostly in the news is global warming. It is a shift towards a hotter climate due to the green house gases that are being reduced by the human beings.

According to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climatic change, it is defined as being a change in climate that can be linked directly or indirectly to some human activity that ends up changing the composition of the atmosphere. This is in addition to the variability of climate that takes place over a period of time. According to this definition, climatic change can be considered a synonym of global warming (Tim, 2006).

There are a number of causes for such a phenomenon to occur; one of the causes, green house gas emissions, carbon dioxide emissions are being reduced by human effort in an attempt to decrease the rate at which global warming is taking place, so that the ecological system on the Earth can sustain. Some of these causes are not in the hands of the humans; these may be changes in the solar radiation that may take place, or the movement of tectonic plates, deviation in the Earth's orbit, volcanism etc. These factors are usually out of the hand of humans and hence the gradual shift in climatic change is occurring over the past years, escalated by human interventions (Martin, 2002).

The repercussions of this shift are tremendous and dangerous; glaciers on the ice caps can be studied to understand the effect of climatic change, the tides as well as the ice-cores can tell a lot about the climatic shift that is taking place. Figure 2 shows us the result of the global climate change in the long run.



LOGISTICS AND GHG EMISSIONS

The most vital part of the logistics management is the transportation of the goods and services from the source point to the destination points through some mode. This part of the logistics plays the worst role in the high numbers of the green house gases emissions. "According to Carbon Budget and Trends Annual Report, 2007, global carbon emissions rose rapidly during 2007 with industrializing nations like China and India producing more than half of mankind's output of carbon dioxide CO2 which happens to be the main cause of global warming2." The increase in these emissions is the result of the burning of the fossil fuels in high quantity and the transport industry is considered as the main criminal. (Modak, 2010)

"In a study of business trips requiring air travel taken by employees in Japan, Europe and North America, these emissions totaled approximately 88,000 tons in fiscal year 20083". This analysis was performed by Sony to help it reduce its carbon footprint in the global world. At the same time, HP believed that each year the transportation of its products through air, road and sea produces around 2 million tons of carbon dioxide (HP, 2010).

EPA and IPCC believe that the supply chain processes have the greatest impact on the emissions of the green house gases. The analysis has shown that this part produces around 60% of the total emissions in the global world. Therefore, the corporations have the highest leverage on the reduction of GHG emissions through the logistics; even the selection of the appropriate mode from road, air and sea will greatly impact the emissions into the atmosphere (GLD, 2010).

EPA ON LOGISTICS MANAGEMENT

The environmental protection agency has been very strict and requires adherence to its laws related to efficient logistics. Logistics involves the movement of goods from one place to another by using up fuel and other resources. If the resource allocation is not efficient, then with the extra usage of fuel, it may add to the cost for the organization as well as unwanted carbon dioxide in the environment. An example to explain further; usually in an year, 15 percent of more of annual truck miles are a waste as they do not move any resources or material back and forward. In such a scenario, it may mean around 15000