Our research centres on a wide range of aspects in sustainable logistics systems. Since the 1990s, we’ve seen this area develop from a less significant, somewhat obscure side question to what it is today, when the environment and sustainability are central concepts for logistics in industry, society and research. Our researchers have wide-ranging expertise in this area, with over 100 years’ research experience in total.
Logistics is important for a well-functioning society. We need products to be able to reach their destinations at companies, public organisations and consumers. At the same time, logistics systems are a burden on the climate and environment, meaning that we have to study these needs and burdens in their entirety. That is our approach to research. We see customers’ needs as pre-requisites for logistics systems, which in turn creates consequences in the transport system and in collaboration with other actors. We often describe the consequences in terms of costs, profitability, competitiveness, environmental and climate effects, and social perspectives – this is sometimes referred to as the Triple Bottom Line.
We work in many different ways, together with companies in the supply chain (manufacturing companies, retail companies), transport industry and other organisations. We design our research around interesting challenges that specific actors face, as well as around exciting collaborations. Sometimes we do observational research, and at other times we interview people with lots of knowledge and different perspectives. We often do interactive research with the organisations we are looking at – that is to say, we work together to reflect on their problems, and help them to solve them.
