The New 3PL: Pooling, Power and Partners for Sustainable Logistics

The logistics industry is a major emitter of carbon dioxide. Maritime shipping alone contributes around 2% of global energy-related carbon emissions while in the European Union, heavy trucks produce over 27% of the greenhouse gases from road transport. Although data for real estate is less common, estimates suggest warehouses, terminals and ports may produce up to 30% of transport-related emissions in Western countries.

Organisations that wish to be sustainable must therefore address the logistics section of their value chains. Carbon accounting principles such as Scope 3, which cover the whole supply chain, now require this, but so do eco-conscious consumers, activists and journalists. Investors are also increasingly sensitive to attempts at greenwashing. 

How to align third-party logistics (3PL) with de-carbonisation is now a question on the minds not only of leaders within the industry but across the wider economy, and organisations are taking various approaches. For FM Logistic, it is to integrate sustainability into the core workings of the organisation – to turn supply chain into Supply Change. 

“We want to be ‘supply-changers’ for the entire sector, meaning we want to think out of the box and not apply the same rules that were applied before,” says Antoine Dufetelle, Sustainability & QHSE Group Director at FM Logistic. “We don’t want to follow the trend. We want to lead it.”

By 2030, using the 2024-25 year as the baseline, FM Logistic has committed to a 42% reduction in Scope 1 and 2 emissions and a 21.5% reduction in transport intensity. Achieving this requires a change across the company’s three core activities: transportation, storage and warehouse construction.

In the 3PL sector, one of the greatest opportunities for de-carbonisation is in the construction of the warehouse itself. Research by FM Logistic and NG Concept has found that 70% of a site’s CO2 is emitted during the construction phase, 27% during its operational life and 3% in demolition. Bringing down these numbers is a priority. 

For this reason FM Logistic now requires its fulfillment sites to acquire HQE or LEED certification, a global standard for green buildings. To this end, the company is installing solar rooftops, turning warehouses into renewable power plants; and it has 18 active 6,500-kilowatt peak (kWp) installations, with another 2,300 kWp facility under construction. Along with sustainable procurement from the grid, this now means FM Logistic sources 100% of its electricity from renewable sources.

The warehouses can be temperature-controlled and make extensive use of insulation to maximise the gains – not only environmental but financial and local too – from solar power. In Saint Hilaire de Loulay, France, for example, a collective agreement allows FM Logistic to share the output of its site’s solar panels with the network and local consumers.      

HQE or LEED certification takes more than clean energy, however. Water and waste management is crucial, the health and comfort of occupants is paramount, and biodiversity must be protected as well. On top , FM Logistic looks to plant trees around its warehouses, says Antoine. “There is a lot of value behind that: environmental value, social value and, arguably, economic value.” 

For example, trees not only reduce the visual impact of these large structures but also muffle the noise, bringing measurable benefits to nearby communities. Planted with care, trees can also create cooling area where our workers can have a break. And because they absorb carbon, trees partially offset some of the emissions. 

Decarbonising the day-to-day operations of logistics sites is FM Logistic’s Watt Watcher programme, which maximises the productivity of electricity usage. The company is replacing gas boilers with heat pumps at all its facilities. Some locations even use solar panels to produce green hydrogen on-site, which then powers converted forklifts.

One of the greatest sources of carbon efficiency, however, is minimising empty space. “By encouraging competitors to co-locate within the same delivery vehicles, use of space and its attendant carbon costs can be lowered, typically resulting in a 15% to 30% reduction in CO2 emissions and a 45% reduction in traffic congestion,” says Antoine.      

FM Logistic facilities are designed specifically to serve multiple clients and products, and enable the pooling of transport resources across those customers. Such pooling is a highly efficient way to reduce CO2 emissions both for logistics companies and their clients. It changes the role of 3PL companies from deliverers to co-ordinators, working as an honest broker between competitors to ensure that they can enhance their sustainability profile without breaching competition laws or giving away sensitive commercial intelligence. 

FM Logistic’s third core function is the physical movement of items using intermodal transport. When it comes to decarbonising overland transport, however, its approach in the short term is to prefer rail to road, particularly for long-haul loads above 500km.

One train can carry 40 containers, taking the equivalent of 40 trucks off the roads. However, road vehicles are still necessary for pre- and post-delivery. Here, the company uses trucks running on biofuels (HVO, B100) and for the last mile, smaller vans with zero tailpipe emissions, which are mandated by municipal regulations in more and more European cities. 

FM Logistic’s medium-term strategy is focused on high-power electric trucks, which couple the low emissions of rail freight with the flexibility of road transport. Currently such vehicles represent only around 4% of medium and heavy-duty truck sales in the EU, but this must rise quickly over the next four years if EU de-carbonisation targets are to be met. 

FM Logistic is also investing in heavy truck charging systems to ensure electric trucks can recharge quickly, to make long-haul electric transport more effective and to allow haulage partners to use the same systems. 

Meanwhile, ‘book and claim’ mechanisms are becoming widely adopted across aviation, maritime and road logistics to promote low carbon energy usage. The system allows a company like FM Logistic to purchase low-carbon fuel for their fleets and pass on the resulting carbon savings to clients actively seeking decarbonisation rather than the clients whose freight happens to be on those specific vehicles. By decoupling the physical freight from its environmental attributes, FM Logistic is able to match low carbon energy supply and demand, explains Antoine.

The long-term ambition is for the 3PL sector to become the orchestrator of a sustainable global economy. Antoine argues that this requires a threefold effort:

While no single entity can solve climate change by themselves, Antoine views FM Logistic’s role as an essential piece of a larger, unified solution that can be delivered alongside its partners and customers. 

The industry is on the front lines of the effort to tackle the uncertainty and complexity of today’s business environment, and must be flexible and commercially mature when it comes to promoting sustainability, especially across the wider ecosystem. However, that should not prevent collective action. 

“By working collaboratively through our People, Planet, Partners approach, we can support our wider ecosystem in attaining these goals, spreading the costs of the necessary investments fairly so that those best placed to shoulder them can do so,” Antoine says. “This way, we make sure the sustainability upgrade does not impact our industry’s essential role within the global economy.”