One of Europe’s leading poolers of sustainable wooden pallets to the retail supply chain is bucking a worrying global trend by working with customers as part of the circular economy in order to reduce their carbon footprint by more than one million unnecessary miles every year.
According to a new The Circularity Gap Report 2020 launched this week in Davos at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum only 8.6 per cent of economies operate ‘circularly’.
And, for the first time ever, the world is consuming 100 billion tonnes of materials a year with reuse of resources going into reverse – falling from 9.1 per cent in the two years since the annual report from Circle Economy was first launched.
Circle Economy’s CEO, Harald Friedl, said that governments must “urgently adopt circular economy solutions if we want to achieve a high quality of life for close to 10 billion people by mid-century without destabilising critical planetary processes.
In relation to the rest of the world, Europe has a mature circular economy model and, according to the report, three European countries have already adopted national circular roadmaps.
Coventry-based IPP, which is collaborating with its retail customers to eradicate empty running legs in their supply chains, is also seeing the same customers cut more than 2 million kilogrammes of CO2 emissions, as part of its broader contribution to the circular economy. The customer collaborative solution has increased partnership working, supply chain visibility and fleet optimisation, reduced operational costs, generated an additional revenue stream and enhanced levels of customer service satisfaction across a wide range of clients.
According to the Institute of Grocery Distributors (IGD), empty running costs industry more than £150 million a year in wasted fuel, with more than 70 per cent of suppliers and retailers identifying it as their biggest opportunity to reduce costs and carbon.
IPP has worked closely with manufacturing and retail customers to co-ordinate the back loading of used pallets on the return journeys, eradicating the need for other vehicles to collect them for repair and repatriation.
“There has never been a more important time to be part of the circular economy, as the Circularity Gap report highlights,” said IPP’s UK and Ireland director, Phil Storer.
In the last year we saved over one million miles by this co-ordination process – which saved an enormous two million tonnes of CO2 emissions,”
“It is about working smarter as part of an end-to-end process for customers from start to finish. Our job is to make the reverse logistics process work as efficiently as possible to reduce unnecessary journeys,” added Storer, who coined the phrase ECOnomics to describe smarter working in the circular economy.
As part of the IPP process customers can be financially incentivised to sort their own pallets ready for return journeys back to manufacturers’ sites.
In addition, IPP has forged stronger relationships with existing haulage partners as part of a strategic plan that is not only protecting jobs, but creating new positions and investment in trucks and equipment.
