Meeting peak demand shouldn’t mean choosing between service and sustainability.
As Black Friday, the Christmas period and other demand peaks approach, retailers and their stakeholders know the importance of ensuring enough stock reaches the right place at the right time. Better planning and practical steps can protect supply, delivery times, and the customer experience. These can also support sustainability goals by cutting inefficiencies and carbon emissions.
As a B Corp™ certified freight forwarder, we see it as our responsibility to help drive customers’ long-term success by moving beyond simply supplying vehicles to instead support the design of smarter, leaner and – perhaps most importantly – more resilient supply chains that minimise their environmental impact.
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Why does planning freight ahead save stress in the run up to peak periods?
Last minute changes often force businesses to choose between speed, cost, and carbon. Yet there are many ways to plan for disruption. Use sales history and seasonal calendars to improve forecasting. Build backup plans for key SKUs to meet high demand.
Planning for potential capacity, inventory and/or logistics bottlenecks ahead of time gives retailers more options. This includes the choice to secure transport before pressure intensifies and/or build in buffers to ensure expensive (both in cost and carbon emissions) last-minute options can be avoided.
How can choosing the right type of freight transport save companies money?
Segmenting inventory needs according to their urgency means retailers can:
- Ship predictable inventory earlier using less carbon-intensive options (where operationally appropriate).
- Explore multimodal solutions for more sustainable supply chain management rather than relying solely on road freight – which can be carbon intensive (particularly for last mile delivery of small volumes).
- Leverage bonded warehousing and shared storage solutions position appropriate inventory closer to expected demand and cut the risk of paying double customs duty. This also allows for faster replenishment but can lead to increased risk of damage and loss through additional handling if done excessively.
- Reserve air freight and rapid transport options for urgent or high-priority shipments where reliability is at risk.
How can carbon reduction strategies improve operational efficiency?
While many businesses have chosen to defend against the increase in market volatility by investing in shorter production runs and more cautious inventory strategies, high frequency shipments of less-than-truckloads (LTLs) offers both increased carbon emissions and – given the volumes being moved, stored and handled in the run up to peak – increased risk of damage and loss.
If two LTL movements can be merged into a single, well-utilised container journey without sacrificing stock availability, organisations can remove unnecessary freight activity whilst still protecting service levels and reducing carbon emissions.
High volume loads, however, can be reliant on set routes and are not efficient options when it comes to last mile deliveries.
Optimising which type of freight, what lanes are used and the frequency of transport movements is therefore essential to reduce costs while ensuring stock reliability as well as minimised emissions. This can be done by:
- Consolidating orders where lead times allow rather than rely on multiple LTL movements.
- Reviewing pallet configuration and packaging dimensions against trailer/container fill rates to ensure excess space is minimised.
- Identifying opportunities to reduce empty running for return loads (and therefore improve overall energy consumption).
- Coordinate deliveries from suppliers in the same region to consolidate loads where possible.
Can retailers transition to using EVs and alternative fuels without putting peak performance at risk?
Whilst road freight is a major decarbonisation challenge and EVs and renewable fuels do offer retailers clear ways to reduce emissions; peak season is not the right time to switch.
The Department for Transport has previously identified battery-electric vehicles as an emerging option for lighter HGVs with local operations (making them an attractive investment for urban distribution) they are arguably limited in their commercial feasibility on a large scale.
Retail peaks additionally can often mean longer routes, diversions or unexpected pressures – leaving little margin for disruption – and when suitability is dependent on weight, journey length and frequency of necessary movements, adding or replacing vehicles alone isn’t a reliable approach given charging and refuelling infrastructure isn’t yet developed enough to cope on a widespread scale.
Alternative fuels (such as biodiesel, HVO, biomethane and renewable hydrogen) could offer a decarbonisation route for lanes where EVs aren’t yet practical, and they could be used to transition fleets away from diesel reliance. They would however need to be factored as part of wider contingency planning rather than being solely relied on to ensure retailer’s peak strategies aren’t left at risk of disruption.
How investing in carbon insetting can future-proof retail supply chains
For retailers seeking to reduce their supply chain emissions, carbon insetting offers an opportunity to invest in meaningful long-term change.
Unlike carbon offsetting (which compensates for emissions by supporting projects outside a company’s value chain), insetting focuses investment within or closely connected to it – such as through supporting lower-carbon transport or renewable energy options.
Through utilising GLEC verified data, Scope 3 reporting means that companies now have access to a much more accurate, transparent, and relevant mechanism to identify and handle residual emissions from their supply chains. Rather than simply compensating for emissions after they’re generated, insetting encourages businesses to understand their supply chain and invest in the transition to lower emission supply chains by addressing emissions at their source.
This is particularly valuable when emissions cannot yet be eliminated without negatively impacting on delivery service and can instead be built as part of a transition alongside longer-term, more direct reduction strategies.
Why collaboration is key to raising the bar for supply chain management?
We’re committed to raising the bar for our industry.
While we move goods of all shapes and size, and work across multiple industries including manufacturing, retail, construction and technology; through our role as ‘Solutions Architects’, we look beyond just the immediate movement of goods and instead consider how we can help develop efficient and practical supply chains – tailored to each of our customer’s needs as they navigate global challenges, balance costs and stay up to date with evolving legislation.
Peak periods shouldn’t be the reason to postpone decarbonisation, but neither should carbon reduction come at the expense of resilience.
The key is therefore collaboration.
By bringing stakeholders across logistics, sustainability, procurement and operations together earlier in the planning process, retailers can protect their supply chains while identifying which route options are ready to transition to EVs or renewable fuel alternatives, where contingency capacity remains essential and where infrastructure still creates challenges.
The goal is not to put net zero options above profitability. It’s to build a lower carbon strategy that ensures the right products are delivered to the right place at the right time to ensure supply meets the demands of peak both now and in future.
