Search results

This paper aims to highlight the importance and need to include carbon emissions from international transport in the sourcing decisions of corporate organizations and the calculation of national emissions inventories (NEIs).

The paper proposes a method of attributing emissions from international transportation in global supply chains and calculating their impact on the economic sustainability of corporate organizations through a carbon price.

An application of the original model developed in this paper showed that international transport emissions can have an important effect on NEIs. An example of the imports of manufactured items from China and Germany to the USA showed a 3 per cent increase in emissions from manufacturing activities in the USA.

Introducing carbon pricing on international transport emissions is expected to motivate corporate leaders to include emissions from international transport as a factor in their sourcing decisions.

Inclusion of international transport emissions along with the imposition of a carbon tax are designed to act as disincentives to generating emissions from supply chain activities. It is argued that the implementation of the model may provide long-term benefits associated with reduced emissions and a level playing field to organizations which use efficient technologies in manufacturing.

It is recognized that the implementation of a carbon tax on international transport emissions may face resistance from several stakeholders, including governments of exporting countries, corporations and customers, due to an increase in cost.

This paper provides an original method to include emissions from international transport in supply chain decisions.

Despite the high profile of climate change rhetoric and the carbon intensive nature of flying, policies for controlling CO₂ from aviation remain at odds with global commitments on climate change. Taking a carbon budgeting approach to compare future aviation scenarios with the scale of necessary emission reductions demonstrates the extent of this contradiction. The significant potential for ongoing aviation growth contrasts with the need to curb substantially global CO₂ emissions across all sectors. For even a 50:50 chance of staying within the 2°C threshold, emission pathways imply around a 75% cut in absolute emissions by 2050 (from 1990 levels). Set against this, aviation’s CO₂ emissions are expected to grow by between 170% and 480% over the same period, and they could feasibly be higher still.

For the international community to be serious about its climate change commitments, moral and ethical concerns need to be considered alongside technical and economic issues. It is timely to question whether expansion of an industry with few technological options for decarbonisation is a reasonable way to gamble with our future.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically identify key factors of UK food supply chains (SCs) that significantly contribute to CO₂ emissions (CO2e) taking into account the life cycle assessment (LCA). The UK food supply chain includes imports from other countries.

This research develops a conceptual framework from extant literature. Secondary data obtained from ONS and FAOSTAT covering from 1990 to 2014 are analysed using Multilinear Regression (MLR) and Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA) to identify the factors relating to CO₂ emissions significance, and the efficient contributions that are being made to their reduction in the UK food supply chains.

The study results suggest that Transportation and Sales/Distribution are the two key factors of CO₂ emissions in UK food supply chains. This is confirmed by two multivariate methods, MLR and SFA. MLR results show that transportation increases UK CO₂ emissions by 10 tonnes of CO₂ emissions from one tonne of fruits and vegetables imports from overseas to the UK Sales and Distribution reduces the UK CO₂ emissions by 1.3 tonnes of CO₂ emissions due to improved, technological operation activities in the UK. In addition, the SFA results confirm that the key factors are sufficient to predict an increase or decrease in CO₂ emissions in the UK food supply chains.

This study has focused on the LCA of the UK food supply chain from limited data. Future studies should consider Sustainability Impact Assessment of the UK food supply chain, identifying the social, economic, regulatory and environmental impacts of the food supply chain using a re-defined LCA (all-inclusive assessment) tool.

This research suggests that food supply chain professionals should improve efficiency, e.g. the use of solar energy and biogas, and also integrate low-carbon policies and practices in food supply chain operations. Furthermore, governments should encourage policies such as mobility management programmes, urban redevelopment and privatisation to enhance better transportation systems and infrastructure to continuously reduce CO₂e from the food trade.

Although logistics play a major role in CO₂ emissions, all logistics CO₂ emissions for other countries are not included in the ONS data. This research reveals some important insights into the UK food supply chains. Logistics and other food supply chain processes of importing countries significantly contribute to CO₂ emissions which are yet to be considered in the UK food SCs.

The purpose of this paper is to review the relevant literature on low carbon supply chain management (LCSCM) and classify it on contextual base. It also aims at identifying key decision-making issues in LCSCM. This paper also highlights some of the future challenges and scope of research in this domain.

A content analysis is carried out by systematically collecting the literature from major academic sources over a period of 18 years (2000-2017), identifying structural dimensions and classifying it on contextual base.

There is an increasing trend of research on LCSCM, but this research is still in a nascent stage. All supply chain functions such as supplier selection, inventory planning, network design and logistic decisions have been redefined by integrating emissions-related issues.

Limitation of this study is inherent in its unit of analysis. Only peer-reviewed journal articles published in English language have been considered in this study.

Findings of prior studies on low carbon inventory control, transportation planning, facility allocation, location selection and supply chain coordination have been highlighted in this study. This will help supply chain practitioners in decision making.

Though there are an increasing number of studies about carbon emission-related issues in supply chain management, the present literature lacks to provide a review of the overarching publications. This paper addresses this gap by providing a comprehensive review of literature on emissions-related issues in supply chain management.

Electric cars represent the most energy efficient technical option available for passenger cars, compared to conventional combustion engine cars and vehicles based on fuel cells. However, this requires an efficient charging infrastructure and low carbon electricity production as well. Combustion engine cars which were converted to electric cars decreased lifecycle CO₂-equivalent emissions per passenger-km travelled down to one third of before, when powered by green electricity. However, through an analysis of 78 scientific reports published since 2010 for life cycle impacts from 18 aggregated impact categories, this chapter finds that the results are mixed. Taken together, however, the reduced environmental impacts of electric cars appear advantageous over combustion engine cars, with further room for improvement as impacts generated during the production phase are addressed. When it comes to battery components, Cobalt (Co) stands out as critical. Assessing the impact of electric cars on the local air quality, they are not ‘zero emission vehicles’. They emit fine dust due to tyre and brake abrasion and to dust resuspension from the street. These remaining emissions could be easily removed by adding an active filtration system to the undercarriage of electric vehicles. If electric cars are operated with electricity from fossil power plants nearby, the emissions of these plants need to be modelled with respect to possibly worsening the local air quality.

Climate change is recognised as one of the greatest challenges that contemporary global society faces. The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) Fourth Assessment Report (2007) states that it is ‘very likely’ that anthropogenic global warming will result in a temperature rise of between 1.8°C and 4°C by the end of the 21st century. Temperatures at the upper end of this range are considered ‘dangerous’, and the international community is focused on attempting to limit the increase to within 2°C (Meinshausen et al., 2009). Increasing global temperatures are just one consequence. The world will face an increasing level of unpredictable and extreme weather patterns, each with different, but in many cases, serious consequences for life on earth (IPCC, 2007).

The Greehouse Gas (GHG) in the shipping industry has attracted increasing attention. One potential method to reduce the GHG mitigation cost is the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). The purpose of this paper is to identify factors that may increase or hinder the CDM in the shipping industry and provide policy implications.

The paper is an extension and application of the methodology first published by Wang and Firestone in Energy for Sustainable Development. The gravity model in international trade theory is used. The econometric model is employed for the analysis.

Larger project endowment, higher government efficiency, high‐quality expertise and infrastructure may play roles in increasing CDM in the shipping industry. The promotion of small‐scale projects, upgrade of the infrastructure, assistance of technologies and knowledge overseas can help the shipping industry and small countries to attract more CDM.

The paper is among the first work to describe and analyze potential barriers for the international shipping industry to use the CDM. It also suggests a set of measures to address the policy options to promote CDM in the shipping industry and small developing countries.

The aim of this study was to first establish foundational algebraic expressions that parametrically describe any advanced dual-energy storage–propulsion–power system (DESPPS) and then proceed to declare the array of fundamental independent variables necessary for the sizing and optimisation of such systems. Upon procurement of a pre-design-level integrated aircraft performance model and the subsequent verification against previously published high-end low-fidelity generated results, opportunity was taken in formulating a set of battery-based DESPPS related design axioms and sizing heuristics.

Derivation of algebraic expressions related to describing DESPPS architectures are based on first principles. Integrated performance modelling by way of full analytical fractional change transformations anchored according to a previously published Energy Specific Air Range (ESAR) figure-of-merit originally derived using the Breguet–Coffin differential equation for vehicular efficiency. Weights prediction of sub-systems that constitute the entire aircraft including DESPPS constituents emphasises an analytical foundation with minimal implementation of linear correlation factors or coefficients of proportionality. An iterative maximum take-off weight build-up algorithm emphasising expedient and stable convergence was fashioned. All prediction methods pertaining to integrated performance were verified according to previously published battery-based DESPPS results utilising high-end low-fidelity methods.

For all types of DESPPS, two new fundamental independent non-dimensional variables were declared: the Supplied Power Ratio (related to converted power afforded by each energy carrier); and, the Activation Ratio (describing the relative nature of utilisation with respect to time afforded by the motive power device associated with each energy source). For a given set of standalone sub-system energy conversion efficiencies, the parametric descriptor of degree-of-hybridisation (DoH) for Power was found to be solely a function of the Supplied Power Ratio, whereas in contrast, the DoH for Energy was found to be a more complex synthetic function described by comingling of Supplied Power Ratio and the Activation Ratio. Upon examination of the integrated aircraft performance model derived in this treatise, for purposes of investigating CO₂-emissions reduction potential for battery-based DESPPS using kerosene as one of the energy sources, one salient observation was maximising the ESAR figure-of-merit is not an appropriate objective or intermediary function for future optimisation work. It was found maximising block fuel reduction through the use of maximum ESAR would lead to ever diminishing design ranges and curtailment of the payload-range working capacity of the aircraft.

Opportunity is now given to design and optimise aircraft utilising any type of DESPPS architecture. It was established that designing for battery-based DESPPS aircraft can be achieved effectively in a two-stage process that may not require aircraft morphologies more exotic than the so-called “wing-and-tube”. Firstly, a suitably projected state-of-the-art aircraft with solely advanced gas-turbine technology for the propulsion and power system needs to be produced. Thereafter, a revised version of this baseline projected aircraft now using DESPPS architecture should be conceived. A recommendation related to CO₂-emissions reduction potential for battery-based DESPPS using kerosene as one of the energy sources is that during optimisation work the multi-objective formulation should comprise at least two functions: block fuel and operating economics. In all instances, it was advised that the objective function of block fuel should be tempered by an equality constraint of ESAR parity with the baseline projected aircraft using gas-turbine only technology.

A complete, unified analytical description of DESPPS that is universally applicable to any type of energy carrier has been derived and verified for battery-based dual-energy systems. Correspondingly, a set of aircraft design axioms and sizing heuristics relevant to battery-based DESPPS have been presented.