Working Together for Green Logistics: Open Logistics Foundation and Smart Freight Centre Join Forces
Today, open source software and open standards are central to green and sustainable logistics. With this in mind, the Open Logistics Foundation and Smart Freight Centre have decided to join forces: As part of a network partnership, which has now been sealed with the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding, the two organisations also want to advance zero-emissions logistics in the future jointly. To this end, the sustainability expertise of Smart Freight Centre and the digitalisation expertise of the Open Logistics Foundation are to join forces. The new partnership sends a strong signal to the industry and the market in favour of open source software and open standards. This once again underlines the need for companies to work together.
The non-profit, common-benefit organization Open Logistics Foundation promotes the collaborative development of open-source components and services for logistics and supply chain management. In the Open Logistics Foundation, more than 35 member companies and organizations from all over Europe design and develop open standards for efficient logistics. The topic of sustainability in logistics is becoming increasingly important for logistics service providers, as well as logistics IT companies: legal requirements are increasing, as are expectations on the part of manufacturers and shippers.
Smart Freight Centre, a globally active non-profit organization for climate action in the freight transport sector, works with more than 180 multinationals globally, aiming to support the global logistics ecosystem in measuring and reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Key achievements in the field of emissions reporting include the development of the GLEC Framework, the only globally recognized methodology for the harmonized calculation and reporting of the logistics GHG footprint across the multimodal supply chain, and the ISO 14083 standard for quantifying and reporting greenhouse gas emissions from transport. An API interface to simplify the digital exchange of sustainability data along the supply chain was recently developed in the iLEAP project. The project is being operated by Smart Freight Centre and the SINE Foundation as a technical partner.
Andreas Nettsträter, CEO of the Open Logistics Foundation, said:
“In logistics in particular, it is clear that sustainability does not stop at the boundaries of a company. Together with Smart Freight Centre, we want to raise the potential for cooperation between companies in logistics. Smart Freight Centre is one of the world’s leading addresses for sustainability in logistics, plays a key role in the decarbonization of logistics, and has a high level of credibility. We are united by the idea that open-source implementations and standards ensure the establishment of harmonized solutions throughout the supply chain. By implementing green and sustainable logistics strategies, companies can not only improve their environmental footprint but also strengthen their competitiveness.”
Rik Arends, Director of the Sustainable Freight Buyers Alliance at Smart Freight Centre, added:
“Smart Freight Centre supports the logistics ecosystem worldwide in tracking and reducing emissions to meet the 1.5-degree climate target. However, sustainability can only succeed if companies work together. A standardized digital exchange is essential to track emissions. This requires transparency and trust, which is what the Open Logistics Foundation stands for, a drive to ensure a standardized adoption of open-source standards with multinational organizations who want change. We look forward to partnering with the Open Logistics Foundation and driving decarbonization and standardization of logistics emissions together.”
Through their partnership, the Open Logistics Foundation and Smart Freight Centre aim to strengthen the knowledge transfer between the two organizations and into the economy, and ensure targeted matchmaking between interest groups from all over Europe. In addition, joint events are to be organized. The first joint projects are already in the pipeline.