Who controls the logistics emissions? Challenges in making fragmented supply chains environmentally sustainable from logistics service providers’ perspective

Purpose
The purpose of this article is to explore the environmental impact of Logistics Service Provider (LSP) activities in the light of increased customer attention and fragmentation of the industry. It also explores to what extent the LSPs can actually monitor the environmental impact of logistics activities in the supply chain?

Design/methodology/approach
The methodology of this paper is a literature review, a qualitative interview survey, and three case studies. A framework on sustainability challenges in supply chains derived from the literature is used to structure and analyze the findings.

Findings
Our findings reveal that despite ambitious environmental schemes communicated by several LSPs, LSPs exert very little control over the actual emissions created from their transport operations. Furthermore, it is clear from this study that any real interest in environmental solutions that impact the cost and time requirements from customers of logistics services are not yet a reality.

Research limitations/implications (if applicable)
This paper implies that LSP sustainability cannot be investigated in isolation if a company does not manage proprietary resources.

Practical implications (if applicable)
Our findings imply that environmental policies between different LSPs appear similar, but in practice differs, which stresses the importance of follow-up control by environmentally aware logistics service buyers.

Originality/value
This paper represents a novel approach as to how LSP environmental policies should be viewed.