On Earth Day, it seems quite appropriate to reflect on Con-way’s sustainability efforts and how we fit into the goals (and the politics) of today’s environmental movement. As a framework, we must acknowledge that our primary business is dependent on petroleum and will be for quite some time. As a result, we are not going to be the poster child for the environmental movement. That being said, our sustainability efforts have been widely recognized by a variety of academics, government officials and agencies, customers, peers and even some environmental groups.

Our four tenets of sustainability — reduce energy usage, eliminate waste, recycle and practice sustainable procurement — are paying real dividends for people, the planet and our profits. We are making meaningful changes to our equipment and our systems, taking full advantage of the latest technologies. We are meeting regularly with proponents of natural gas fuels. We are re-lamping our facilities for increased energy efficiency. We are working with an international group of stakeholders to develop a logistics carbon use calculator. We recycle more than 60 percent of the material used to construct our trailers. And we have partnered with a group including a NASCAR engineer, NASA, Oak Ridge National Laboratories and SmartTruck, a new manufacturer of aerodynamic products for the trucking industry, to develop and test a new concept in trailer aerodynamics, the Under Tray System, which is now being installed on Con-way Truckload trailers.

As the environmental movement changes focus (global cooling in the 70s to global warming in the 90s to today’s battle cry about general climate change) it is through our continued efforts that Con-way will consistently provide meaningful reductions in energy usage and resultant pollutants.

On this Earth Day, I believe Con-way can hold its head high and be proud of its sustainability efforts. Have you celebrated your progress toward improving the environment?

Companies adopt environmental sustainability programs mostly for one of three reasons: the customer asks for it, the government mandates it one way or another or the market demands it to remain competitive. But how do you know if the results of your green programs are measuring up? And how do you know if you are ready to respond when governments ramp up regulation of carbon emissions?

Unfortunately, there’s no single solution and standards vary widely. Nevertheless, transportation and logistics companies can still gain a firm grasp of the strengths and weaknesses in their sustainability programs, and develop a plan to position themselves for success as the playing field changes. They can start by taking stock of their total carbon emissions output.

The most obvious sources of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the supply chain are trucks and other vehicles, such as forklifts, which use fossil fuels and participate directly in the movement of freight. But when accounting for your company’s total carbon footprint, you’ve got to consider every aspect of your daily operations and how it relates to the environment. It means understanding more than the impact of trucks, it means evaluating everything from electricity levels to natural gas use and fully understanding your operations.

Lean tools and methodologies, such as value stream mapping, are especially valuable in helping understand carbon streams and how to drive out waste from them. Understanding the larger picture provides a more complete view of where to focus sustainability efforts. All of this analysis provides insight into the true impact of your organization’s supply chain on the environment.

There are different segments which influence sustainability, and different systems for measuring their impact. Understanding what measurement is most effective for which area of your operation is an important step to accurately and fully measuring the extent of your carbon footprint. These can include, among others, the GHG Protocol, the National Greenhouse Energy Reporting (NGER) Act, the Climate Registry Information System (CRIS), EPA’s SmartWay Transport Partnership and any custom systems. Creating a plan will help to identify your carbon emissions inventory with the various registries, and integrate them into one manageable and measurable program.

The ultimate goal is putting in place effective measurement tools that provide an accurate accounting of sources of carbon emissions, and how these affect your footprint. It’s imperative to creating meaningful, realistic and, most importantly, credible sustainability and carbon management programs. A number of organizations, including Menlo Worldwide, are developing the capabilities and methodologies to help companies manage this emerging challenge.

It’s not an issue of if carbon management and reporting will become a requirement, it’s when. There’s never been a better time to take action and position your company for success. The risks of waiting for an industry standard and not starting out on your own path are simply too high.

Source: www.rutgers.edu

At a time when it is increasingly acknowledged that the federal government is on an unsustainable fiscal course, you would think the first thing a cabinet agency’s new strategic plan would do is attempt to figure out which of its historical functions are truly federal and should be continued. But that sort of prioritization is entirely absent from the U.S. DOT’s draft Strategic Plan, posted online for comment at https://dotstrategicplan.ideascale.com .

Instead we are given a vast array of poorly justified expansions of the federal role into every nook and cranny of how Americans and their goods should travel—as well as how and where we should live.

One prevailing theme is frustration that current law does not permit the DOT to exercise as much micromanagement as its leaders think they should be doing. For example, the plan laments the lack of federal authority to regulate the safety of mass transit, as well as the lack of federal control over which specific highway and bridge projects states spend their federal highway monies on (as opposed to the numerous programs into which the feds already divide up these funds). It even laments that “DOT’s Federal-aid roadway design standards are not enforceable on local streets,” so that unless the law is changed, the DOT can only “encourage” more states to adopt the “complete streets” model in which every street in America must be equipped with sidewalks and bike paths.

Another recurrent theme is performance measures—but they are selectively and inconsistently applied. For example, something as basic as a minimum benefit/cost ratio threshold (perhaps 1.5) would weed out numerous low-priority projects that sound nice but aren’t worth the money. The only instance in which such a standard is discussed is with regard to possible airport expansion. It is not mentioned with respect to with DOT’s newly favored sectors: transit, streetcars, high-speed rail, the “marine highway,” etc.

The phrase “data-driven” appears several times, but only in limited contexts such as multimodal safety problems—not to evaluate favored modes or favored themes. The notion of a level playing field among transportation modes is mentioned several times—but the only aspects where analysis is suggested are on fuel-use, safety, and environmental benefits. What about a level-playing field comparison of goods-movement modes on cost, delivery time, and reliability?

A major focus of the previous Administration’s DOT, under both Democrat Norm Mineta and Republican Mary Peters, was congestion reduction. This applied to both surface and air transportation, and included active promotion of market pricing in both areas (with no success in aviation, alas). Unfortunately, while the draft strategic plan gives lip service to reducing congestion, its approach to doing this in urban areas is to expand transit, promote ride-sharing and flextime, and support the demand-management form of road pricing. (Tellingly, that reference to pricing is buried in the “State of Good Repair” chapter, which is mainly about asset management.)

And that provides a clue to one of the major omissions from the Plan: capacity expansion. While it expresses limited support for expanding airport capacity, in highways its only concession is the possibility of “targeted investments” in “our national freight highway corridors to address bottlenecks.”

But as far as motorists are concerned, there is not a word about adding capacity to cope with projected growth and reduce congestion. In fact, the plan even suggests that more cities do as San Francisco did after its last earthquake and tear down urban freeways that may no longer be needed. And in its redefinition of “functionally obsolete” bridges, it refers to not having “adequate lane widths, shoulder widths, or vertical clearances,” but makes no mention of not having enough lanes. It also uncritically accepts the “We can’t build our way out of congestion” mantra, despite extensive evidence to the contrary (especially with priced capacity).

Entire chapters are devoted to the Secretary’s two favorite topics: Livability and Environmental Sustainability. Both are notable for broad assertions presented without acknowledging considerable data and analysis calling them into question. For example: “A comprehensive strategy that promotes livability and reduced the demand for auto travel will significantly lower the long-run cost of transportation (and other infrastructure) for both household budgets and taxpayers.” (p. 30) That’s an astounding claim, accompanied by zero evidence. Transit and smart-growth advocacy groups typically argue that substituting transit for driving saves an individual money—but they ignore the large taxpayer cost of the highly subsidized transit alternative.

Another example is a tricky little game played with transportation data. The National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) did indeed find that 11.6% of all individual trips are made by walking or bicycling. Page 51 contrasts that figure with the less than 2% of annual Federal Aid Highway funds spent on walking and biking. First, this ignores the other NHTS finding that in terms of person-miles traveled, biking and walking together come to just 0.9% of the total (but still get 2% of the funding). Second, federal highway funds are supposed to fund important federal highways , like the Interstates. There is also the factoid that 40% of all metro-area trips are two miles or less in length and therefore “could be taken on foot or bicycle”—if you ignore how people value their time, the vagaries of weather, the stuff they have to carry, etc.

Yet another assertion, presented with no attempt at substantiation, is that “Creating livable communities is just as important to residents of rural areas as it is to residents of urban and suburban areas.”

Finally, in the chapter on sustainability, this allegedly data-driven, performance-based plan simply asserts that “to reduce carbon emissions, improve energy efficiency, and reduce dependence on oil,” the nation must begin “development of a national network of high-speed rail corridors.” A similarly vague justification is given for DOT to “strategically expand the marine highway system.” These mode choices are never presented as having emerged from a data-driven, mode-neutral benefit/cost analysis; they are simply assumed to be wise choices on which to expand billions of federal tax dollars. In particular, nowhere in the entire document is there any mention of using a cost/ton standard (such as no more than $50/ton) to sort out cost-effective greenhouse gas reduction measures from highly wasteful ones.

This draft plan is presumably a preview of what the Administration will set forth in its proposal for reauthorizing the federal surface transportation program. That amply demonstrates the need for a fundamentally different alternative to emerge from Congress.

Bob Poole is a Searle Freedom Trust Transportation Fellow and Director of Transportation Policy for the Reason Foundation, the free market think tank. A recognized transportation policy expert, Mr. Poole has advised the previous four Presidential administrations on transportation and policy issues. This column first appeared in the May 2010 issue of the Reason Foundation’s Surface Transportation Innovations e-newsletter.

Source: northcom.mil

More than eight years later, the events of 9/11 continue to have a game-changing effect on supply chain design and how global commerce functions. New concerns and opportunities, such as sustainability and the increasing availability of real time data, may also affect the way supply chains are designed.  It has become an increasingly complex activity, presenting significant challenges yet compelling opportunities.

There are two principal reasons why supply chains have become more complex, and a third reason for why this complexity will likely increase in the near future.  All of these have implications for the transportation and logistics industry, including accelerated outsourcing to companies with supply chain analysis, re-engineering and management expertise.

Reason 1. Supply chain design must account for variable operating models, assumptions and business characteristics that are far more diverse and complex than before.  Globalization, the multi-modal movement of freight, regulatory and cost structures, sourcing and financing practices, international border crossings, congestion at ports (sea and air) and on roads are only a few of the factors today’s supply chains must accommodate.  This model complexity invariably results in significant algorithmic and computational challenges associated with software systems that provide visibility and actionable information upon which supply chain operational decisions are made.

Reason 2. Supply chains are inextricably linked now more than ever to the overall performance of businesses. And while supply chains must first and foremost contribute to the overall competitiveness of the enterprise, increasingly their designs have to consider more than just efficiency. In this regard, lean practices and methodologies – pioneered in the automotive manufacturing sector – are finding wider adoption in logistics. Lean practices are driving significant improvements by removing waste and shop-floor inefficiencies that, once corrected, ripple back upstream to drive more consistency, productivity and cost savings. Lean supply chains thrive when there is little variability.  However, the very nature of globally distributed global supply chains breeds variability. Disruptions are anathema to a truly lean supply chain.  Witness the rapid collapse of the Toyota production system in the late 1990s when a major fire occurred at a key brake component supplier.

The events of September 11, 2001 brought significant attention to several questions and motivated the need to think beyond lean and be able to deal with major supply chain disruptions.  Before 9/11, supply chain security meant preventing things from being removed from the logistics cycle by unauthorized parties.  In the post 9/11 world, concern has also focused on preventing disruptive elements from being inserted into supply chain operations to create violent havoc.  Today we ask:  How do we reduce the impact of new security initiatives on supply chain and freight transportation network productivity and how can we design competitively productive supply chains that exhibit “resiliency” (i.e., degrade gracefully and recover quickly) when a major disruption occurs?  In addition, there are growing concerns about the environmental impact of supply chains and how these concerns will affect supply chain efficiency and hence the company’s competitive performance.

Reason 3. A third future contributor to the increase of complexity in supply chain design and analysis is the growing availability of real time data (e.g., inventory levels, production rates, vehicle status, weather, congestion) that can support real time supply chain control.  The availability of these data is enabled by the growing presence of sensor, communications and computer technology throughout the supply chain.  Explicit consideration of uncertainty inherent in the data represents an opportunity to reach the next level of (expected) supply chain competitive performance. This will be achieved by harnessing the value of information contained in the data, invariably at the expense of more complex supply chain models and computationally demanding algorithms.

All these challenges point to the need for new thought, approaches, skills and practices for supply chain design and management. These are areas where advanced 4PLs and lead logistics providers are demonstrating emerging competency.  The growing complexity of supply chain design can be expected to further accelerate outsourcing and the development of a high growth third and fourth party logistics industry.

Ultimately this emerging skill set will enable global businesses to overcome the increasingly complex challenges of our post 9/11 supply chain world and usher in a new level of advanced supply chain design and management.

Chelsea C. White holds the Schneider National Chair of Transportation and Logistics at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where he is the Director of the Trucking Industry Program and the former Executive Director of The Logistics Institute.

A long-running battle over reducing diesel emissions from port drayage trucks has turned into a serious threat to nearly 30 years of trucking deregulation.

Several years ago an alliance of union and environmental groups threatened to make it politically impossible for the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to expand unless they cracked down hard on emissions from the thousands of trucks used in drayage of containers to and from rail yards and distribution centers in Southern California

Their package deal was that the ports would henceforth deal only with companies rather than thousands of individual owner-drivers, on the grounds that only large companies could afford to replace all those trucks with new trucks compliant with 2007 Federal diesel emission standards.

The not-so-hidden agenda was that drivers in truck fleets would be easy for the Teamsters to unionize, whereas they can’t do anything with owner-drivers.

The entire goods-movement industry, including the American Trucking Associations, objected to this plan as violating the Federal pre-emption of state or local economic regulation of trucking—and they prevailed last March in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. The Port of Long Beach dropped out and set up its own registration and certification program, pertaining solely to requiring clean-air compliance on a truck-by-truck basis. Both ports are offering subsidies to help truckers purchase compliant trucks, and as of a recent count, over 5,500 trucks have either been replaced or retrofitted in less than a year. An October headline in the Los Angeles Times said “Diesel Emissions Down Drastically at Ports of L.A., Long Beach.”

Having lost in court, the Coalition for Clean and Safe Ports, representing 80 environmental and labor groups, has mobilized to change federal law. Besides Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, they have recruited the mayors of Oakland, Newark, and New York (and their ports) to urge Congress to amend the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act of 1994 (the most recent law dealing with federal pre-emption of transportation economic regulation) to permit ports to exclude owner-driver operators and deal only with fleets. Their aim is to get union-friendly legislators to slip such a provision into the surface transportation reauthorization bill.

Source: www.boston.com

That would be a huge mistake. As Journal of Commerce editor Paul Page wrote recently, “We’re talking about setting unprecedented limits on the pre-emption of federal regulatory authority over state laws that has been established and upheld in court rulings over many decades. We’re talking about the legal fabric of commerce in the United States.” Moreover, should individual ports be allowed to create this patchwork of policies, those that did so would put themselves at a competitive disadvantage. The ports of L.A. and Oakland compete with Canada’s Vancouver and Prince Rupert and Mexico’s Lazaro Cardenas, all well-served by long-distance rail. And the Port of New York and New Jersey competes with major ports in Virginia, Georgia, Houston and elsewhere.

Even partially rolling back trucking deregulation would set a terrible precedent, emboldening those who would like to undo railroad and airline deregulation as well. Let’s hope cooler heads prevail as Congress drafts and debates reauthorization.

The recent fuel efficiency report by the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) derives conclusions that may look good on paper, but they offer limited real-world application and misrepresent the ability of railroads to provide a more fuel efficient alternative to trucking. While there is clearly some competition between trucks and railroads, the two modes of transportation typically serve different market functions, and the instances where one mode presents a viable alternative for the other are relatively rare.

Given the unique characteristics of each mode, we cannot compare them using the same criteria. By design, railroads are optimal for carrying much heavier, bulk commodities such as coal and stone, resulting in increased efficiency when using the ton-mile-per-gallon (tmpg) metric. Trucks are better suited for hauling lower density, higher value goods, like food, clothing, medicine and electronics. Comparing these very different modes based solely on fuel efficiency (tmpg) and consumption is overly simplistic and one-dimensional. Because trucks carry low-density freight, a more accurate metric is cubic capacity, not load weight. Whether it’s by air, water, or land, a larger vehicle with greater hauling capability will always yield stronger results on a tmpg basis when compared with a smaller vehicle with less hauling capability.

The report also relies heavily on tank car movements to bolster fuel efficiency claims, followed by a few other applications. Naturally, the tank car movements resulted in the highest efficiency ratio, compared to tanker trucks. Liquids are some of the densest cargo available. A more relevant comparison would be to look at the relative efficiency between the two modes when moving low-density items, like consumer goods, which are shipped almost exclusively by truck.

As we look at fuel efficiency across modes, the report points out that truck requires fewer intermediate steps and can be routed more directly than trains. According to the report, over-the-road movement of freight accounts for 93 percent of fuel use by trucks, while trains waste up to 45 percent of their fuel during short, intermediate movements or yard-switching operations. While trucks do not achieve the same fuel efficiency on a tmpg basis as railroads, they are still an efficient mode of transportation. Today’s trucks are also cleaner than ever. By 2010, clean engine technologies will reduce particulates by 90 percent and nitrogen oxide emissions by 95 percent of the amount produced by trucks manufactured a decade ago. More importantly, trucks are essential for delivering freight where it needs to go.

Intermodal rail is only possible with a strong fleet of trucks to move goods to rail yards and deliver to final destinations. Trucks are the only viable option for most delivery destinations. At best, railroads serve only 20 percent of U.S. communities. Trucks, by comparison, deliver virtually all consumer goods that make our lives comfortable and about 70 percent of overall freight tonnage in the United States. Even if rail was more accessible, trucks are a more effective shipping option for smaller, lower density loads.

The FRA’s report focuses on one metric for comparing trucks and railroads, and offers little relevance to the debate on modal advantages. The trucking industry recognizes the value of railroads as part of the freight network. Trucking companies are among the railroads' best customers, and place freight on railroads whenever the distance of travel and nature of the cargo make an intermodal rail-truck freight movement economically viable. However, these opportunities are extremely limited and make up less than 2 percent of the freight market. Each shipping need must be looked at holistically to determine the best mode of transportation, or combinations of modes, depending on what is best suited to the specific task.

In their discourse over climate change legislation, lawmakers continue to propose reduced vehicle travel as a strategy to lower fuel consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The transportation industry must further its commitment to the environment, but impeding our nation's mobility by enacting policies to limit growth in vehicle miles traveled (VMT) should not be a national policy. In addition to eliminating personal freedom and threatening our nation’s productivity, getting people out of their cars and off the roads also means less revenue for the ailing Highway Trust Fund (HTF).

Instead of limiting vehicle use, we must become more efficient and utilize technologies to decrease fuel use and limit carbon emissions. It’s pleasing to see support for a few of the sustainability recommendations already supported by the trucking industry.

Through a strong partnership with engine manufacturers, new over-the-road truck engines far exceed the EPA’s diesel engine emission standards set in 2007. Hold a white cloth over the exhaust stack of a new truck today and the cloth stays white.

Regulatory policies to limit and enforce speed limits are also important, not only for highway safety, but also for the reduction in fuel use. Enacting a national speed limit not to exceed 65 miles per hour and governing speeds of all trucks manufactured at no more than 65 miles per hour would drastically reduce fuel consumption and reduce CO₂ emissions.

Reducing traffic congestion is another vitally important strategy for lowering fuel consumption and carbon emissions.

Source: www.corrosioncost.com

The Texas Transportation Institute estimates that Americans waste 2.8 billion gallons of fuel each year because of congestion on our highways. We must have a system for highway infrastructure funding that will effectively support these necessary environmental goals.

The federal fuel tax is still the most efficient way to collect revenue for the HTF, but it must be updated to keep up with our current needs. The current tax – 18.4 cents per gallon charge for gasoline and 24.4 cents per gallon for diesel – has not been adjusted since 1993, yet costs of highway projects continue to escalate. This is a very poor formula for maintaining a healthy trust fund. The trucking industry supports an increase in the fuel tax, so long as the revenue goes directly to highway infrastructure and is not diverted to non-highway uses, as it has been in the past.

The trucking industry is deeply committed to reducing fuel consumption and GHG emissions, but these objectives do not have to come at the expense of a safe and effective highway transportation system.

Cap and trade, as envisioned by the Obama Administration and Congressmen Waxman and Markey, will do grave damage to all transportation sectors.  While the Administration proposed a 14% reduction in greenhouse gas levels by 2020 from 2005, the Waxman/Markey draft bill mandates a 20% reduction, going to a 42% reduction by 2030.

Cap and trade really is cap and tax, and, yes, it's a floating carbon tax.  Since the emissions caps are hard, the pseudo market created by government edict has to yield prices that force various sectors of our economy to reduce emissions by the required amount.  Transportation is accused of being responsible for 30% of greenhouse gas emissions, so it will have to alter its activities to generate at least 30% of the required reductions.  Presumably, if that isn't occurring, then the government agency controlling the "market" in emission allowances will manipulate the rules to force further reductions.

Thus, the prices of transportation that are in any way carbon fueled will be forced sharply upwards over relatively short periods of time.  That is precisely the point of such a system.  Cap and trade cannot repeal the laws of supply and demand in the real world, so demand for transportation services will be suppressed, unless and until carbon is no longer a significant transportation fuel.

The Waxman/Markey bill contains another dagger pointed at the heart of the maritime, railroad and trucking industries: carbon tariffs.  To combat what is being styled "carbon leakage" (i.e., production moves to countries that don't similarly reduce emissions), the bill would give the President standby authority to impose tariffs based on the carbon content of imported goods.  Thus, if China and India stick to their current positions that they won't impede their economic growth by agreeing to such reductions in emissions, imports from those countries will be penalized accordingly.  I haven't yet seen an explanation of how this is permissible under GATT.

Finally, if such a massive carbon tax ($650 billion to $1.9 trillion over ten years) is imposed, I can't imagine a political scenario that also results in increases in direct fuel taxes dedicated to the Highway Trust Fund.  While proponents of cap and trade have suggested a variety of ways to spend this massive influx of revenue, virtually none of them have endorsed depositing to the Highway Trust Fund the revenues generated by transportation activities.  While there is an overwhelming consensus that we need to invest heavily in the renewal and expansion of our transportation infrastructure, we seem to be headed toward a scenario in which carbon taxes ultimately paid by transportation users are diverted to non-transportation uses.

Jim Burnley is a partner in the Washington office of Venable LLP, and is widely recognized as one of the nation's foremost authorities on transportation law and policy

Many consumer products companies are adopting new “green” product shipping packaging that is lighter, takes up less space and consumes fewer natural resources. From a sustainability perspective the benefits certainly seem clear.

Packaging engineering is at the forefront of helping companies reduce the overall carbon footprint from the manufacturing and distribution of products they sell.  There are many benefits: decreased overall cost, reduction of weight attributed to packaging, reduced amounts of used packaging which is recycled or goes into landfills, lower overall transportation costs, reduced product life-cycle carbon footprint, among others. These are all quantifiable and desirable benefits.

But in the real world of transportation – the networks of ships, trains, containers and trucks through which these goods physically are handled and moved from manufacturing plant to store shelf, what are the implications of this “less is better” strategy?   One of the primary purposes of shipment packaging is to protect the product while in transit.  So as packaging becomes smaller, thinner and lighter, unless great care is taken in the re-engineering, material selection and redesign of packaging, the “protection” role of product packaging can be weakened and compromised, increasing the risk of and exposure to damage.

Shipment packaging must meet approved specifications which are established expressly for the transportation of the commodities the packaging contains. If it is not, your transportation service provider may deny shipment damage claims that arise due to inadequate packaging.

Packaging specifications are available for review through the National Motor Freight Traffic Association (NMFTA) which runs the full gamut for all manner of materials and goods, including acceptable exceptions to those standards, as necessary, and provisions for the construction and integrity of the package. These are established to meet minimum requirements to ensure the product for which the packaging was designed will in fact be sufficiently protected during transport.

Inadequate shipment packaging creates problems for both the shipper and transportation provider.  In a multi-shipment, multi-commodity environment (such as LTL or parcel), an array of shipment sizes, weights and package configurations are co-loaded together, with the carrier loading them in a manner that seeks to protect the integrity of all shipments on a trailer.  When shipment packaging either 1) fails to provide adequate internal protection or 2) is not constructed in a manner that can withstand the loading and unloading of goods in a trucking operation, no one wins.  The carrier ends up with two dissatisfied customers: the shipper and the consignee.

While it is absolutely the right thing to do all we can to reduce the impact of product packaging on the environment, we cannot forget that effective package design also must meet industry standards and provide for adequate protection against shipping damage.  It’s part of the total product cost equation that, if inadequately addressed, will lead to more product waste – the opposite result of a true “green” objective.