Download Investigation on the Strategy of the Development of Low-Carbon

Investigation on the Strategy of the Development of Low-Carbon
Logistics in China in Low-Carbon Economy
TU Shuli
School of Business Administration, Jiangxi University of Finance and Economics, China, 330013
[email protected]
Abstract: Currently, developing “Low-Carbon Economy” is globally recognized. To keep economy
development sustainable, China’s logistics industry must respond to it actively, change concept and
promote Low-Carbon Economy through the Low-Carbon Logistics. Therefore, this discussion is
realistically significant. By comparing domestic development situation of logistics industry with
international development situation of logistics industry, this paper analyses four main factors that
currently restricts logistics industry’s growth in China and finds out development measures accordingly.
To achieve Low-Carbon Logistics Industry in China, we need to redesign the logistics system and
reconstruct the supply chain; extend the applications of low-carbon technologies in logistics; increase
the level of informationization of logistics; improve rationalization of logistics; implement the joint
delivery; propel the recycling of used logistics facilities and promote green packaging. Simultaneously,
governments shall encourage the low-carbon logistics by introducing more favorable policies, and focus
on the cultivation of qualified logistics talents. The aim is to keep the carbon dioxide emission resulting
from activities of logistics industry in China.
Keywords: Low-carbon Economy, Low-carbon Logistics, Green Economy
1.
Introduction
1.1 The background of global low-carbon economy
The introduction of “Low-carbon Economy” is traced back to 1992 – “United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)” and 1997 – “Kyoto Protocol”. In June 1992, at United
Nations Conference on Environment and Development, more than 150 countries formulated “United
Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)”, whose tenet is to stabilize the
concentration of green house gases in the atmosphere at the level which is harmless to climate system.
In December 1997, at the third conference of UNFCCC, the participant countries passed the “Kyoto
Protocol” as supplementary provisions of UNFCCC. In the “Kyoto Protocol”, the target of green house
gases emission and each country’s accountability and implementation mechanism have been set up. In
2003, “Low-carbon Economy” was first used in the energy white book of British government named
“Our energy future – creating a low-carbon economy”, and its clear explanation was given: It is to attain
more economy output with less natural resources and less environmental pollution. It is the means and
the opportunity to create higher life standard and better life quality, and creates opportunities of
development, application, advanced technology, new business and more employment as well [1].
Henceforth, the international community actively responded to it. In 2005, the “Kyoto Protocol” that
was endorsed for long time starts to entry into effect. And then a complete international rule system of
low-carbon economy was formed. In December 2007, the United Nations Climate Change Conference
stipulated the “Bali road map”, requesting developed nations to reduce green house gases emission by
25% -- 40% before 2020. The eight nation leaders declared that they would seek for cooperation with
the other signatories of the “Kyoto Protocol”, and work hard to achieve the long-term aim to reduce the
green house gases emission by 50%. In July 2008, at the G8 summit, the Copenhagen summit came to
the end; China promised that carbon emission per GDP unit would be decreased by 40% -- 45% in 2020
compared with that of 2005.
Logistics industry consumes a lot of energy. Reducing the energy consumption of logistics industry can
promote the progress of low-carbon economy. The new game will start. The fate of many logistics
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companies closely relates with the new economy under the condition of green logistics industry.
1.2 Domestic and International current situations of Low-carbon Logistics
The rise of low-carbon logistics industry is attributable to low-carbon revolution and the official
encouragement of Copenhagen Conference on the Environment on environmental protection. As the
global climate is getting worse, global “low-carbon revolution” is on the rise, human beings are coming
to a new low-carbon era that is based on "low energy consumption, low pollution, low emissions".
Logistics, recognized as high-end service industry, must focus on the low-carbon, green logistics service,
and intelligence informationization of low-carbon logistics.
Deng Ziji, from Xiamen University, suggests in his paper “low carbon economy and public finance”,
that development of low-carbon economy needs public financial support. Chinese public finance’s
support and promotion on "low-carbon economy" need to implement four principles, i.e. scientific
development, sustainable development, social harmony and regional collaboration. [2]
Zhou Gewen, from Dalian Jiaotong University, advises in "five major problems of low-carbon logistics
development in China", that “United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change” may become
the third general rule of global development and the rule of ecological civilization based on low carbon
economy, leading the trend of global economic development. Developed countries have already
completed industrialization. Their carbon emission is downwards. They are the leaders and dominators
in energy saving technology. In the long run, carbon trading market and carbon finance market are
growing, which results in that developed countries will have a new platform of leading the world. [3]
Nowadays, in China logistics development is not professional, and logistics costs involved in economic
development is a little high. China's social logistics expenses accounts for nearly 20% of GDP, while
below 10% in US and Japan, and about 16% in medium developed countries. Extensive and inefficient
logistics operations result in increased energy consumption and waste. To cope with climate change,
China’s government promised that carbon emission of the unit of GDP would be 40% -- 45% lower in
2020 than that in 2005. Under this circumstance, the development of low-carbon economy is imperative.
Logistics industry is regarded one of the ten main industries.
2.
Problems in the Development of Modern Low-carbon Logistics in China.
Problems are high unloaded ratio, repeated transportation, staggered transportation and ineffective
transportation that are unreasonable. Various modes of transport are not closely connected to each other;
inventory backlog is too large; storage utilization is low and logistics infrastructure and facilities are
repeated; logistics informationization is low. How to reduce the carbon emission from supply chain by
logistics management and technology is a difficulty to be resolved. There are four factors constraining
carbon logistics development in China:
2.1 Lack of well-planned logistics park and scientific logistics systems.
Although investment on logistics park is a hot topic recently, most of them lack complete plan regarding
overlapped coverage and poor effect, or the scale of some local logistics parks is far more than the actual
market demand. For instance, there is a city which plans a logistics park that is 4-5 times big as the one
in Tokyo and has much less logistics quantity than that of Tokyo. Logistics park needs support of
science, technology, education and management. Otherwise, unreasoning development will cause long
investment return and waste of land.
2.2 Disjoint construction of the cold chain
In recent 4-5 years, although cold chain and facility manufacturing in China are both growing, the
proportion is only 20% of the demand. More than 70 billion Yuan of fruits and vegetables are rotted in
the transportation every year. Logistics costs involved in it accounts for 70% of the value of
easily-rotted goods. Due to strong status of retailers in the supply chain and coupled with the complex
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relationship among wholesalers, it is difficult for manufacturers to control cold chain. Hence, industrial
and technical standards are crucial to development of cold chain.
2.3 Inadequate policies for low carbon logistics.
It can be concluded from successful cases, positive promotion from governments is important to green
logistics development: additional investments promote the growth of environmental protection;
organizations are monitoring activities of environmental protection; specific policies and regulations are
in place to guide the activities. Efforts from companies can be put into action if they have favorable
governmental policies and regulations.
2.4 Lack of Low-carbon Logistics technology and logistics professional.
The implementation of green logistics depends not only on the popularization of green logistics concept
and policies but also on support of green technology. Compared with developed countries, China's
logistics green technology is very poor. Vehicle pollution is a huge problem and a bottleneck in the
development of low-carbon logistics. Since “Kyoto Protocol” was in place, there are still few
energy-saving vehicles on the roads in China, not mentioning electrical cars; fuel battery vehicles;
bio-energy cars. Directly or indirect factors that impede the green logistics implementation are as
follows: low levels of logistics equipment, unstandardized equipments, packaging and facilities among
various modes of transport. To some extent, these troubles postpone the improvement of logistics
mechanization and automation, influent loading rate and space utilization.
3.
The Concrete Measures of Low Carbon Logistics Development in China.
3.1 Redesign logistics systems and rebuild supply chain
The logistics system shall be redesigned, e.g. establishment of disposal and treatment of industrial and
household wastes. Low-carbon and environmental protection have become the focus topic around the
world, especially in logistics industry. It relates to organizations’ social responsibility and duties of
providing green living services.
The supply chain shall be rebuilt, e.g. establish industrial standards and relevant laws to regulate
retailers in cold chain logistics; reduce the waste in the process of cold chain; pay attention to
calculation and control of carbon dioxide emission; redesign logistics procedure and way of delivery;
redesign vehicles; set up carbon emission standard and control objectives; enhance the asset utilization
rate; improve energy efficiency such as the use of bio-diesel.
3.2 Promotion of the applications low-carbon technologies in the logistics transportation and
implementation of low sulfur and low carbon fuel vehicles.
First of all, transportation by railway shall be promoted very much because rail freight is the most
energy-saving and the lowest carbon emission among other transportation modes. Firstly, through
innovative transport modes and development of multimodal transport; acceleration of the speed of the
train and advancement of IT level, railway transportation is a big potential of saving energy. Secondly,
we should actively promote low-carbon vehicle transportation. Logistics vehicles are an important
bottleneck in the development of low carbon logistics
，
3.3 Improve the level of informationization of logistics develop the efficiency of logistics and
popularize joint delivery.
Informationization is the base of modern logistics and the precondition of improving efficiency of
logistics. China should know more about current situations and problems of informationization for
logistics and encourage research and application of logistics information technology with proprietary
intellectual property rights and set up an information system which crosses regions and industries in
order to share the information in supply chain. In the process of pushing the informationization for
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logistics, government also should support in form of policies and finances.
Based on increasing level of informationization of logistics, we need to improve the efficiency of
vehicles, avoiding ineffective traffic and repeated traffic, increase the accuracy of demand forecast,
promote JIT and zero inventory, improve utilization of warehouse and optimize traffic routes and load
and unload system.
Popularizing the joint distributions is the best plan that solves the problems of low utilization,
unreasonable layout of logistics infrastructure repeated constructions. It is to share logistics resources
resulting in improvement of public transportation situation and social activities.
3.4 Encourage recycle of old and used logistics facilities and green packaging.
Quantities of old and used facilities will increase due to fast development of logistics. It is a waste that
we simply dispose them. Encouraging recycle of old and used facilities is really important and green,
such as repeating the usage of packing materials, disassemble and recycle the old and used equipments
and redesign or rebuild those old facilities.
Nowadays, synthetic plastics packing materials have caused a lot of environmental problems. In supply
chain popularizing green packing materials is urgent. There will be two ways to solve this: to reduce the
use of disposable packing materials, avoiding the excessive packing and expensive packing; to promote
the usage of biodegradable plastic packing materials and other green packing materials. It is favorable
that governments support in the form of reducing taxation and offering some subsidy.
3.5 Set up more favorable policies to encourage the low carbon logistics and cultivate modern
logistics talents.
Government should pay more attention to improve the environment and control the environmental
protection job, make the specialized policy to lead logistics companies to do the environmental
protection work, accelerate to cultivate the researchers who have the skills of low carbon and talented
persons who has the modern logistics knowledge.
4.
Conclusion
According to the above analysis, the conclusion is that to realize low carbon logistics we need to start
from the origin, i.e. redesign logistics system; reconstruct supply chain; calculate and control carbon
emission; promote low carbon science and technology and railway transportation; use low sulfur and
low carbon energy; improve level of logistics informationization and joint delivery; recycle used
logistics facilities and use green packaging; introduce more favorable policies and focus on cultivation
of logistics talents. We could keep the carbon emission in logistics sustainable.
References
[1]. Dong Hao, Analysis on the development of low carbon economy [J], Zhongguo Xiangzhen Qiye,
2010, (2). (in Chinese)
[2]. Deng Ziji, Low carbon economy and public finance [J], Dangdai Caijing, 2010, (4). (in Chinese)
[3]. Zhou Gewen, Five problems in development of low carbon logistics in China [J], Baike Luntan. (in
Chinese)
[4]. Song Deyong & Lu Zhongbao, Innovation of policy tool in development of low carbon economy
[J], College Journal of Huazhong Science & Technology University, 2009, (3). (in Chinese)
[5]. Zhu Sihai, Development model of low carbon economy and choice of China [J]. Fazhan Yanjiu,
2009, (5). (in Chinese)
[6]. Bao Jianqiang, Miao Yang and Chen Feng, Low carbon economy: new evolution of economic
development [J]. Zhongguo Gongye Jingji, 2008, (4).
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