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Awareness of environmental impacts on society is increasing among companies. In order to turn environmental problems into business opportunities, many companies are beginning to consider how environmental, or green aspects can be integrated into their service offerings. This opportunity can be of specific interest to logistics service providers, whose core business is an environmental impact in itself. The purpose of this article is to indicate where green‐labelled logistics service providers are positioned today in their development, and to seek the underlying rationale in development of green service offerings.

This article takes a logistics service provider's perspective and is based on a multiple case study of six companies. The analysis is based on cross‐case analysis, and empirical, as well as theoretical, pattern matching.

The attitude towards a green approach differs among the case companies: while some are working towards a green integration throughout the entire business, others offer green alternatives to the original service offering. The results point to possible explanations for these differences, and include differences in range of service offerings, size, and to different management principles for green aspects.

The article can inspire logistics service providers in their continuing work to integrate green initiatives into the company. By introducing alternative green approaches in the development of service offerings, logistics service providers can match their own business and context with alternative rationales.

While most of the green logistics research focuses on the logistics system's characteristics, this article offers initial insights into how the integration of green aspects into logistics services can impact logistics service providers.

Whilst green distribution alternatives for consumers have the potential to decrease environmental impact from logistics, retailers struggle to provide such alternatives. The purpose of this paper is to increase the understanding of the factors that hinder retailers from offering green distribution alternatives to consumers.

The paper relies on a multiple case-study of three cases, with one retailer constituting each case. Semi-structured interviews with seven respondents and visits to the retailers' checkouts were used for data collection.

The offering of green distribution alternatives is a complex task for retailers, with barriers related to six categories (organisational, financial, retailer-logistic service provider (LSP) market, retailer-consumer market, governmental and technological barriers) obstructing the way forward. A process towards offering green distribution services, including barriers and potential mitigation strategies, is suggested.

The study is limited to a Swedish context, and further research could consider how barriers would manifest themselves in countries with other characteristics.

A framework with barriers and mitigation strategies offers guidance for managers within e-commerce.

The greening of logistics is an important quest towards world-wide sustainability goals, and this paper contributes with an increased understanding of how to decrease environmental impact from e-commerce distribution.

The paper is one of few that takes the consumer side of the greening of logistics into account, thus contributing with valuable perspectives to this scarce body of literature.

This paper takes its starting point in the possibilities consumers have to influence the greening of distribution. It focuses on three key actors who can facilitate consumer influence, namely e-tailers, logistics service providers (LSPs) and the consumers themselves. The purpose is to illuminate consumers' possibilities to influence the greening of distribution by exploring the communication between LSPs, e-tailers and consumers.

Website scans of the 40 largest Swedish e-tailers and ten LSPs were combined with interviews of three e-tailers and three LSPs.

The findings suggest that consumers at present have limited possibilities to influence the greening of distribution. One reason for this is the limited communication between LSPs, e-tailers and consumers. A gap in communication arises because e-tailers determine how to promote distribution alternatives on their websites, while it is the LSPs who develop and offer green distribution services.

This paper provides a first step in our understanding of what is needed in order to facilitate green distribution decisions from e-consumers.

E-tailers can gain an increased understanding of their important role as facilitators of environmentally sound decisions for consumers through their design of websites. This study also highlights the need for LSPs to support e-tailers in this work.

The study contributes to the societal striving towards zero greenhouse gas emission by focussing on decreasing environmental effects by using suitable logistics.

In contrast with previous research into the environmental impact of e-commerce distribution, this study investigates the possibilities consumers have to influence green logistics within e-commerce.

The purpose of this study is to examine private households’ preferences for service bundles in the German energy market.

This investigation is based on survey data collected from 3,663 customers of seven mainly municipal energy suppliers in the German energy market. The data set was analyzed via a binary logistic regression model to identify the most prospective customers and their preferences regarding bundles of energy services.

The results indicate that potential adopters of energy-related service bundles have greater prior knowledge about service bundles; place higher importance on simplified handling, flat rates and long price guarantees; prefer to purchase a service bundle from an energy supplier; live in urban areas and have a gas tariff; are both less likely to have a green electricity tariff and to support the German energy transition; have a greater intention to purchase a smart home product; are less likely to already be prosumers; and prefer customer centers and social media as communication channels with energy providers.

This paper offers several implications for decision-makers in developing marketing strategies for bundled offerings in a highly competitive energy market.

This paper contributes to the sparse research on service bundles in the energy sector, despite the growing interest of energy suppliers and consumers in this topic. It expands the research focusing on the telecommunications sector.

This study attempts to examine the relationship between reliable big and cloud data analytics capabilities (RB&CDACs) and comparative advantages (CA) of manufacturing firms (MFs) in the Middle East region as developing countries using green product innovation (GPI) and green process innovations (GPrI) mediating factors, further assess the role of data-driven competitive sustainability factor as a moderated factor.

436 useable online surveys were analyzed using the quantitative approach for the data-gathering process, applying structural equation modeling in the Smart-PLS program as an analysis tool. The sample unit for analysis included all middle- and senior-level managers and employees within MFs. The authors performed convergent validity and discriminant validity tests, bootstrapping also was applied. The authors included GPI and GPrI as mediating factors while using data-driven competitive sustainability as a moderated factor.

The findings of this study indicated that there is a positive significant effect in the relationship between reliable big and cloud data analytics capabilities and comparative advantages, which is supported by the formulated hypothesis. Furthermore, the findings confirmed that there was a positive and significant effect through the mediating factors (i.e. GPI and GPrI) on comparative advantage, additionally, it confirmed and supported that the moderating factor represented by data-driven competitive advantage suitability has significant effect as well.

This study has some limitations represented by using only one type of methodological approach (i.e. quantitative), further, it was conducted on only Asian countries in the Middle East region.

This piece of work improved the proposed conceptual research model and included several factors such as reliable big and cloud data analytics capabilities, comparative advantage, data-driven competitive sustainability, GPI and GPrI. This research offered new and valuable information and findings for managers, practitioners and decision-makers in the MFs in the Middle East region as a road map and gaudiness for the importance to apply these factors in their firms for enhancing the comparative advantages in their firms. Further, this research fills the gap in SCM literature and makes a bridge of knowledge and contribution to the existence of previous studies.

This study discusses the influence of logistical immediacy on logistics service providers' (LSPs’) business. Specifically, its role in the face of the emerging business scenario (e-commerce, disruptive technologies, and new models of logistical services) is examined.

As logistical immediacy is a nascent topic, this study utilizes a systematic literature review focusing on academic articles from the last five years related to logistical outsourcing to understand the changes imposed by logistical immediacy on LSPs.

The impact of transformations arising from an increasingly digital virtual world (DVW) on LSPs is contextualized. A theoretical view of the factors affecting LSPs' shift towards more immediate operations is presented, and how logistical immediacy impacts LSPs is discussed. Finally, a research agenda is presented as the study's main contribution.

Due to the timeframe chosen, the restriction to a single database (Scopus), the specific search terms used related to LSPs, and limiting the search parameters to operations management, some relevant work may have been overlooked.

The article help LSPs' and contracting companies' managers to understand the influence of the immediacy expected in logistics operations. Possible logistics services trends and how they may impact companies are discussed.

This is one of the first articles in the area of operations and supply chains that addresses the issue of logistical immediacy and its impact on LSPs.

The purpose of this paper is to shed some new light on the entrepreneurial finance of green start-ups, for which there has been little quantitative empirical evidence thus far. It explores what challenges green start-ups might experience when it comes to financial access.

The paper includes a survey of start-ups in Finland, Germany and Sweden and the separate evaluation of the “greenness” of participating companies’ product/service portfolios based on Eurostat’s Environmental Goods and Service Sector classification. A logistic regression is carried out for different company phases for two measures of challenges (“difficulty accessing finance” and “rejection by investor/funder”).

Green start-ups as an overall group cannot be said to have more challenges in access to finance. Particularly, a lack in business education and a high level of innovativeness, however, seem to be lead to more challenges for green start-ups in accessing finance compared to other start-ups.

Further research might seek to identify which exact characteristics of innovative green start-ups lead to challenges in financial access, i.e. is it individual factors such as high risk levels, high investment sums, long development periods or a low return prospect – or is it rather a combination? It might, furthermore, be rewarding to investigate whether “interventions” of business-related training might reduce challenges.

Suggestions are made for improved policy support to sustainable entrepreneurship in the case of green start-ups.

This research paper provides quantitative empirical analysis in a new research area, which has previously been predominantly theory based with some anecdotal observations as well as some early qualitative research.

The purpose of this paper is to widen the knowledge base on supply chain learning by exploring and explaining how an enterprise can compete and win in the international market by integrating quality management practices along its supply chain and, above all, by becoming the coordinator in a supply chain learning (SCL) network.

The authors conducted an exploratory case study on a group operating in the coffee market that is universally recognised for the high quality of its products: illycaffè.

This paper illustrates and explains how the illycaffè Group implements, competes and wins in the international market because of its exemplary business strategies, its focus on the competitive priority of quality, and consistent and integrated supply chain management practices that are sustained by an innovative approach: the diffusion of knowledge, know‐how and a culture of excellence in coffee quality along the entire value chain. The authors find that the diffusion of a culture of quality orients supply chain learning towards the continuous improvement of product and service quality, and above all, improves results by encouraging an emergent behaviour across different actors that creates a shared culture.

The exploratory nature and use of a single case study are the major limitations of this research. Nevertheless, this study may serve as a significant starting point for future research and analysis related to supply chain learning strategies.

The illycaffè case study contributes to the literature on quality management and on supply chain management suggesting how an enterprise can improve product and service quality using a sustainable SCL strategy based on knowledge/know‐how diffusion and a shared culture along the entire supply chain.

Globalization has led worldwide organizations to balance their economic and environmental performances in order to achieve a concrete sustainable development. In an environmental centered world, logistics is called to put into action advanced programs based on technological and organizational improvement, in order to gain or maintain a concrete competitive advantage. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how logistics organizations try to face the recent ecological challenges and the role that the emergent green technologies play in making them finally “green” and competitive.

Green supply chain management (GSCM) practices have been investigated to better understand their influence on economic performance and corporate competitiveness. After providing a background discussion on Green Logistics and GSCM, the authors have also identified specific research questions that are worthy of investigation, also thorough the DHL case study. The case study analysis has been conducted according to a specific conceptual model (Rao and Holt, 2005), which allows a deeper understanding of literature review results.

The present paper offers some insights on innovation influence on supply chain management (SCM) greenness, a process oriented to a sustainable and environmental-friendly approach to management of supply chain. According to DHL case study evidence, in logistics innovation, often based on emerging green technologies, is strictly related to the development of a much more sustainable and environment-friendly approach to SCM, based on reduction of core activities’ ecological impact, cost saving, quality, reliability, performance and energy efficiency. In this context, the respect of environmental regulations is fundamental to achieve not only a reduction of ecological damage, but also to overall economic profit.

There is a concrete need of further research to better understand the potential link between GSCM, green innovation and logistic organizations competitiveness. In fact, this research area still represents a source of interesting challenges for practitioners, academicians and researchers. Concluding, the research findings cannot be generalized to all logistic organizations, even if DHL is on of the most important and globalized logistic companies. Future researches should empirically test the achieved results also through comparative studies based on a large sample.

The suggestion of literature review and the result of case study analysis represent a first attempt to better understand the real and potential influence of GSCM on corporate image and competitiveness. In fact, the present investigation has pointed out that logistic organization can achieve environmental goals and acquire a better positioning than their competitors also cooperating with stakeholders. Therefore, it is necessary that organizations contribute to make them able to participate in corporate activities and develop a concrete environmental-friendly orientation, based on the respect of market’s requests and environmental regulations in order to get their corporate reputation strong than ever.

The interface between logistics service providers (LSPs) and shippers is an area that has received little attention in previous research and even less has been done when environmental issues are added to this interface. Nonetheless, the perception among researchers and the industry is that in many instances, supply and demand in this green interface does not coincide. The purpose of this paper is, therefore, to identify the matches and gaps between LSPs' green supply and the shippers' green demand.

This paper is based on a web‐based survey sent out to Swedish LSPs and shippers. A gap analysis based on mean values and confidence intervals was conducted.

Findings indicate that the LSPs overachieve when it comes to green categories and also that they are aware of this situation. Shippers, on the other hand, interestingly are not aware of this and they seem satisfied with what they perceive is offered by LSPs.

Contrary to previous research, the paper specifies matches and gaps in the green LSP‐shipper interface. As the survey covered actors in the Swedish market, future research would benefit from similar analyses from other countries.

The findings are of use for LSPs' understanding of shippers' environmental demands, and thereby enable them to adapt better to market demand. Similarly, shippers can use the findings to understand green supply and possibly change their demands accordingly.

This paper adds to the knowledge of the green LSP‐shipper interface. Furthermore, it uses gap analysis, which appears to be something not previously done within environmental logistics research.