Improving environmental sustainability at logistics facilities by leveraging green measures on utilities: insights from a longitudinal empirical study

In the arena of sustainable supply chain management, green warehousing (GW) has gained increasing attention from both practitioners and academia. This interest is powered by multiple factors, such as growing pressures from a variety of stakeholders, and their ever-demanding requirements in terms of service levels, cost reduction, and energy consumption. In this challenging environment, warehouses have been also subject to profound changes driven by the recent trends characterizing the logistics sector that have impacted energy consumption and resource usage at the site, as well as the related greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Although companies have started to search for a clear roadmap towards GW measure implementation at logistics sites to achieve the net-zero target, very few empirical contributions can be found in the literature offering guidance in this direction, and managers still struggle on how to translate it into practice. This study aims to address this gap by discussing the results of an extensive empirical-based longitudinal analysis performed at logistics facilities in Italy, with a specific focus on utilities. Data on building features, annual energy consumption and related emissions have been collected over time for a set of over 180 warehouses, together with information on the implementation of photovoltaic panels, heat pumps, smart heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems, and rainwater collection and reuse systems. Results offer interesting insights on the impact of such measures on building performance and can provide guidance to managers looking for a roadmap towards energy-efficient and net-zero logistics.