Cutting Carbon Emissions With A Cross Docking Warehousing Strategy

If you're wincing over the cost of expanding warehouse space for your growing business, there's an alternative. Cross-docking minimizes the need for warehouse space while reducing your carbon footprint. The reductions in warehousing, labor, and material handling resources are well appreciated. 

Additional carbon emission reductions can be gained when you make cross-docking part of your green supply chain strategy. 

Optimize Fleet Management

Cross-docking—unloading cargo and immediately loading it on an outbound carrier—is a just-in-time (JIT) logistics strategy. Products, parts, and materials are delivered as needed while bypassing the warehouse. When considering transportation and logistics could equal up to 75 percent of your carbon footprint, the carbon dioxide (CO2) reduction opportunity is substantial. 

Technology and automation are at the center of efficiently executing a cross-docking strategy. Vehicle tracking and routing systems, for example, allow a high level of coordination of the delivery fleet. By leveraging these technologies as part of a green fleet management strategy, you can coordinate the shipping of products to minimize the need for warehouse space. 

Consolidate Freight Management 

Consolidation and cross-docking are both smart shipping practices. Most shipping services face the challenge of very low vehicle fill rates. Freight consolidation leverages the IoT of shipping with sensors and RFIDs to create a real-time logistics network. Shipments can then be tracked and optimized at the package, load, and truck level. 

By combining smarter freight management and cross-docking, your supply chain can achieve more attractive load pricing and lower warehouse utilization costs. In addition, you'll save on fleet management, maintenance, and fuel costs—further knocking down your carbon emissions, 

Save on Warehouse Overhead

Amazon is one company that recently reported a ballooning carbon footprint as the e-commerce giant aggressively expands warehouse space. The average size of warehouse space at 184,693 square feet is rapidly expanding. Warehousing equals about one-third of carbon emissions in the logistics chain. Cross-docking is a big opportunity to slash your warehouse costs and carbon dioxide emissions.

Damaged product costs and labor injuries are other cost savings. More items are damaged during handling when they enter a warehouse. Your replacement cost would double the original cost for item duplication and delivery (more CO2 emissions).

Cross-docking is a smart logistics practice with added value for the green supply chain. To envision the reductions in your carbon footprint, calculate the amount of carbon dioxide saved to deliver one unit of merchandise by eliminating warehousing from your supply chain. An online warehouse carbon footprint calculator can provide you with a CO2 savings ballpark. 

To learn more about warehousing, feel free to reach out to warehouse services for more information.