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Service modularity promotes efficiency at the provider end of the supply chain and customisation at the customer end. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how logistics service modularity contributes to sustainable development through the means of energy efficiency. This is analysed in the context of logistics services for household waste collection.

A single case study methodology with embedded units is adopted where semi-structured interviews were conducted with a waste service provider (WSP) and buyers (municipalities) in Sweden, focussing on five types of logistics services for waste collection: collection of food and residual waste at apartments and one-family houses, as well as collection of gardening waste. Service modules are identified and analysed by blueprinting the service.

The findings show different service modules – standardised or customised – and their contribution to sustainable development operationalised through energy efficiency. Principles for an energy-centric service design are proposed.

The research is limited to Swedish household waste collection setting. Promising efficiency through standardisation, logistics service modularity has a potential to improve energy efficiency as well. This neglected link between sustainability and service modularity offers fruitful research avenues.

This research is of practical relevance to waste logistics service providers and the municipality by suggesting principles for energy-centric service design. The service blueprint enables using logistics service modularity for improving energy efficiency in different logistics service settings.

This research incorporates an environmentally sustainable development perspective into logistics service modularity and contributes to the literature by exploring how energy efficiency is improved by modular design of logistics services. Furthermore, the study is one of the first to use service blueprinting to analyse logistics service modularity, providing a methodological contribution to that field in general and logistics in particular.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the sustainability of waste supply chains regarding the energy efficiency of first-mile waste collection systems and quality of waste. Roles of actors in the waste service triad are considered, particularly focusing on households.

Primary data are collected from respondents including municipality officers, waste service providers (WSPs) and households through brainstorming sessions, semi-structured interviews, site visits and a focus group. Secondary data are collected from official reports for validation.

Findings reveal tension between the energy efficiency of waste collection logistics and the quality of waste collected. Households are co-producers of logistic services providing important inputs in the form of sorting and moving waste and raw materials into new cycles of goods circulating in logistics systems. Other actors in the logistics service triad are the municipality as regulator and the WSP acting as a reverse-logistics service provider.

This study provides principles for policymakers and practitioners to evaluate the energy efficiency of waste management options, considering the quality of waste. Also, “logistics services” and “quality of waste” as concepts might provoke new thoughts on how to involve the consumer in resource recovery.

Few studies have focused on the end-consumer’s role in waste supply chains. By considering waste as a resource and the consumer as the supplier of this input, this study provides a new way to think about logistics services for waste collection.

Conducting research that is both practice- and theory-relevant is important for the service research community. Action research can be a fruitful approach for service researchers studying the transformative role of service research and wanting to make contributions to both the research community and to practical development. By exploring the current use of action research in service research, this study aims to make suggestions for enhancing the contribution to theory and practice development and to propose criteria for research quality for action research in service research.

This study builds on a systematic literature review of the use of action research approaches in service research.

The study makes three main contributions. First, it posits that any action research project needs to consider the four elements of problem identification, theorization, creating guiding concepts and intervention. Second, based on these elements mirrored in service action research, it outlines and analyzes three approaches to action research (i.e. theory-enhancing, concept developing and practice-enhancing). Third, it suggests a move from instrumental to a more conceptual relevance of the research and elaborates on the criteria for research quality.

This study contributes to the understanding of how action research may be applied for conducting high-quality collaborative research in services and proposes measures to enhance research quality in action research projects focusing services.

This paper discusses logistics service providers' (LSPs’) energy efficiency initiatives for sustainable development, both from an evolutionary perspective and based on a framework consisting of actions, processes (i.e. at the operations interface) and services (i.e. at the customer interface).

Following a qualitative research design, semi-structured interviews were conducted with sustainability managers at LSPs and the data were analysed via inductive coding. Based on the results and the literature, the authors developed a maturity model for LSPs' transitions to environmental sustainability.

LSPs' sustainable development occurs via operational processes, services at the customer interface, and actions that support those processes and services. Energy efficiency efforts are characterised by process depth that helps LSPs to align with their customers' energy efficiency improvement processes. While services related to energy efficiency connect LSPs and their customers, actions in support vary depending on the logistics activities in which LSPs participate.

Further research is needed to test and verify the maturity model and to clarify the interdependency of its three dimensions.

By categorising energy efficiency initiatives and proposing a maturity model for LSPs' sustainable development via energy efficiency, the authors have developed a tool for logistics actors to assess their progress towards improved sustainability.

The paper contributes to the literature by providing a three-pillar framework to understand the sustainability transitions of LSPs through energy efficiency. Developing a maturity model using this framework also contributes to the literature with an approach to assess sustainability advancement in the logistics industry.

The purpose of this paper is to identify requirements and tradeoffs on logistics services for enhanced circularity of materials and resources.

Based on multiple case study design and abductive reasoning, the study investigates 13 different product categories. The data were analyzed based on theoretical, a priori codes from the literature review. Inductive, emerging codes were added to the coding scheme during the analysis.

Requirements of logistics services to support slowing of resource flows are categorized with respect to initiator, location of the service, single or multiple actors, and transportation of parts, products and people. Moreover, the study identifies new logistics tradeoffs: material and people, knowledge and people, and information and knowledge. Transportation of product, people and parts can be reduced by increasing local knowledge and improve information sharing.

This review contributes to the understanding of the relationship between logistics services and enhancement of circularity by highlighting requirements on logistics services in the aftermarket supply chain that support slowing of resource flows. To enhance circularity, logistics services must extend the traditional material information flow with the flow of people and knowledge, respectively.

The categorization provides practitioners and researchers with an overview of requirements and tradeoffs on logistics services to enhance circularity of a particular circular cycle. The implications will provide an opportunity to address environmental impact of transportation and improve the utilization of scarce materials.

Variety of tradeoffs in logistics services can enhance slowing and hence circularity of scarce materials.

First, the authors illustrate how traditional tradeoffs in logistics such as flow of materials, resources and people need to be addressed to enhance circularity through slowing. Second, the authors identify two new tradeoffs in logistics services: knowledge flow and degree of customer involvement.

The aim of this paper is to identify ways by which the theorizing of supply chain management (SCM) takes place, with particular attention to complementary theories. SCM suffers as well as benefits from a “conceptual slack”.

The nature of SCM is discussed, and the role and relevance of theorizing is addressed by using key characteristics of “academic scholarship” based on a literature review of SCM and evaluation of application of theory and theory development.

The integrative and multi-layered nature of SCM sets the conditions for “theorizing SCM” that can take place through various forms: theory application, new theoretical combinations and sensitivity to managerial practice. It is pivotal that future research explore further the performative potential of SCM.

Research with focus on theory development or using complementary theories to advancing understanding of SCM can benefit from the five building blocks of theorizing SCM proposed in the paper.

Theoretical principles in SCM are not only used to describe practical problems but also to “produce the world”; supply chains can be seen as organizational units that act or consummate an action that delivers a particular performance.

This paper portrays SCM sensitivity to managerial challenges by moving from borrowing to a more bilateral view on theorizing of SCM, reflecting the nature of SCM.

The purpose of this paper is to develop the paradigmatic justification for the use of case studies in logistics research. The argument is based on a critical realist (CR) ontology and epistemology. The current logistics paradigm's flat ontology – based on regularity – is replaced by an ontology emphasising structures and mechanisms underlying actual events in the form of logistics practice and performance.

The approach takes the form of desk research, conceptual work and theorizing.

Based on this CR view of the logistics domain it is argued that the justifications for conducting case studies lie in their ability: to reach the causal depth required for revealing the real domain of logistics activities and performance: to reveal the working of mechanisms in loosely coupled structures showing open systems characteristics through a constant alternation between abstract and concrete reasoning and; to include the causal powers and effects of agents' ascribed meanings. Also, it is argued, in contrast with Yin's work which refers to the possibility of generalising case studies, that the justification of case studies not only must refer to their complementary role in research but also must build on groundings that allow this form of research to take a primary role in knowledge creation.

The arguments have direct implications primarily for the scientific justification for case studies in logistics. CR thinking in this respect offers a view in which case studies should be seen as a more legitimate method in logistics inquiries. Second, the paper has implications for further work on the methods of using case studies in logistics: between what types of case studies can one distinguish, and which practical guidelines regarding design and reasoning can be developed based on the CR view?

The paper problematizes current research methodology in logistics. Based on critical realism, it presents a thorough and systematic justification for using case studies as a research approach.

This double special issue called for logistics solutions and supply chains in times of climate change. The purpose of this editorial is to investigate the current and future implications of climate change, and in particular, energy efficiency for logistics and supply chain management (SCM).

Against the backdrop of climate change, a conceptual framework is constructed that reflects on the immediate and tangible effects of a sustainable agenda on logistics and SCM.

Energy efficiency has been largely neglected in logistics and SCM. At the same time, considering energy efficiency requires considerable rethinking on the operational level (from transportation emissions to the cold chain) as well as even the conceptual level. The energy agenda needs a further development of logistics theory and practice.

The editorial highlights the challenges of sustainability and energy in the context of logistics and SCM pertaining to their novelty, importance and interdependence. SCM needs to develop new performance measures that include measures of energy efficiency, in order to adapt to an environment where the old assumption of low fuel costs does not hold stand.