Category Archives: Sustainability

McKinsey has a lot to say about infrastructure development. This article is only on in their blog series on rethinking infrastructure. I suggest not only this one (about credit risk) but the others shown below.

Managing supplier risk in the transportation and infrastructure industry | McKinsey & Company.

I think it is interesting that they value transportation infrastructure on its productivity improvements in transportation alone.  I’ve been modeling transportation’s impact on other industry sectors, and I find that it’s one of the few ways of generating increased productivity in other sectors as well.  In fact, you can map exactly which sectors will benefit from added value in transportation.  That tells you where to look for gains, and estimate the economic leverage improved transportation gives.

.http://business.edf.org/sites/business.edf.org/files/EDF_Supply_Chain_Energy_Efficiency_Report.pdf_

This report from the U of Minnesota’s Northstar Initiative shows why it’s hard to keep business interested in energy efficiency in the supply chain. And it also indicates that cooperation is essential. There’s too much waste in re-positioning vehicles and containers, and no single firm can manage it all alone.

Cooperation is hard to come by, though. Europe is ahead of us in the US, but that’s because the EU has taken a very strong regulatory position.  Here we don’t have that added incentive.  And supply links are longer here.  But we do have the advantage of extensive rail transport, if we continue to improve the system and eliminate bottlenecks, technical, physical, and administrative.

For instance, here in Will County there are several different permitting systems for overweight trucks. Truckers may divert routes to avoid another payment, or may simply go elsewhere to avoid losing time and money.

It appears that many times shifting road traffic to rail can not be proved to improve environmental or congestion issues.  It’s because there was no metric established, and no strategy in place to measure achievements.

It also seems that in Europe, which this article is about, some of the projects put under the aegis of the funding were going to be done anyway for other reasons!  An example of credit for the uninvolved.

In the US many companies are shifting freight for longer hauls to rail intermodal from long haul trucks.  How can we measure the true environmental and social benefits of doing this? And compare them to the downside, like more handling?

I believe sustainability doesn’t just happen out of altruism. If we measure it and find value, we’ll be motivated to do it.

End ‘ineffective’ programmes for shifting road freight to rail say auditors – Lloyd’s Loading List.