Major retailers are on the road to greener deliveries

Major retailers announced eco-friendly initiatives at supply chain consultancy Scala's annual logistics debate last month.

Delegates gathered at Wroxall Abbey, Warwickshire, including major food retailers' bosses, to debate the issue: 'Environmentally efficient supply chains - pipe dream or reality?'

Marks & Spencer (M&S) informed delegates of planned rail network trials to transport goods to distribution centres (DCs) Steve Mulvey, M&S logistics manager, foods, said it was looking at feeder shipping from northern European ports to Grangemouth, Scotland and rail from there southwards, although this could not beat road haulage yet. It was also looking at overseas consolidation hubs and rail deliveries to Simply Food stores at railway stations. Trials involving rail freighting from Europe to the UK were scheduled to run from September this year to May 2009.

However, the government had to do more "than just facilitate and rely on market forces" to improve rail freight, he said.

Following his comments, transport secretary Ruth Kelly unveiled £6bn of investment in the UK road network. She also set out plans to tackle congestion in a paper entitled 'Roads - Delivering Choice and Reliability'.

Collaborative rail freight projects often collapsed because of prohibitive journey costs, said Mulvey. "In many cases the issue wasn't the rail cost itself, but the proximity to get on and off the network and the cost to get to it."

He also criticised Channel Tunnel fees and French railway policies for forcing alcoholic goods in particular on to thousands of lorries, via ferries, on the M20 in Surrey and Kent.

Other M&S initiatives included introducing 140 teardrop trailers - 20% more efficient than standard trailers - to its logistics fleet, he said.

Speaking after Mulvey, Trevor Ashworth, Co-operative Group director of food and retail logistics, said the society had almost finished the overhaul of its entire supply chain, which began in 2004.

The core pillars of the reorganisation would be finished by 2009, but integrating Somerfield's operations would take another four years, said Ashworth. "We will harmonise the range, then start harmonising the infrastructure."

Regarding DCs, he said: "We will close 20 legacy installations, remodel seven and build six from scratch by 2012. We have finished two, in Coventry and West Thurrock; we are building one in Birtley, Newcastle-upon-Tyne. One in Scotland and one in the north west are under negotiation."

Introducing double-deck vehicles had cut 10Mkm worth of journeys from the Co-operative Group's secondary distribution network. It had also secured 60 compressed natural gas vehicles and was investigating other alternative fuels. Reorganising deliveries by store size would take 4.5Mkm off its annual road haulage tally. And taking part in grocery think tank IGD's collaborative Efficient Consumer Response projects would remove 1.1Mkm from distribution trips by 2009.

Ashworth expected the roll out of the Microlise telematics system to vehicles to reduce fuel use by 3% and take the equivalent of 2.5% of Co-op Group vehicles off the road. In addition, deliveries from 520 of its 600 ambient suppliers had been consolidated into a single national distribution centre at Coventry.