The sustainable logistics shift: Inside the race to track and cut delivery emissions

Spurred by new regulations and savvy consumers, logistics teams are reinventing how packages get from warehouse to doorstep. Using data and creativity, they’re shrinking carbon footprints and costs, turning sustainable logistics from a nice-to-have into an operational must.

A dawn of green deliveries

Imagine this scene: on a misty summer morning in Copenhagen, commuters notice a curious sight gliding past gridlocked vans: a convoy of electric cargo bikes, each laden with parcels for the day’s deliveries. What begins as a small trial by a local retailer quickly becomes a routine and a point of pride. Every e-bike on the road replaces a diesel van idling in traffic, slashing the carbon output of those last-mile drops by up to 80%. “Big trucks always blocking the traffic,” one city resident remarks, watching the bikes zip by, “so if they do that kind of stuff, it’s 10 times better for everybody.”

Scenes like this are already playing out across Europe’s cities, as companies experiment with greener ways to get goods to customers. But the sustainability push isn’t confined to streets and bike lanes. In boardrooms and logistics hubs, a quieter revolution is underway.

In 2024, thousands of supply chain managers confronted a daunting new mandate: measure and report every ton of CO₂ their operations emit, or risk falling foul of regulators and customers. Under the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), an estimated 50,000 businesses now face detailed carbon disclosure requirements. No longer can a company simply claim it’s “going green”. It must be proven with hard data.

That shift from voluntary virtue-signaling to mandatory carbon accounting landed like a thunderclap. In one recent survey, 41% of businesses admitted they worry they won’t be able to provide the required emissions data to comply with the new rules. The concern is understandable: for years, many logistics teams relied on rough averages and industry estimates to gauge their footprint. Now they’re being asked for precision: shipment-level specifics on how much CO₂ each delivery produces. As Josué Velázquez Martínez, a researcher at MIT who studies sustainable supply chains, put it, “Scope 3 emissions remain a major hurdle. The margin of error of the most common approach to estimate emissions are drastic”.

In other words, the old ways of guessing are no longer good enough. And for companies that procrastinated, the scramble is on.

From blur to clarity: Data as a climate game-changer

For veteran logistics managers, the new emphasis on carbon transparency is both a headache and an opportunity. On one hand, tracking emissions across tens of thousands of deliveries - each with its own route, vehicle type, and distance - is fiendishly complex. Many supply chains are multi-layered and global, making it hard to get consistent info. One European retailer recently discovered just how messy it can be: their carriers provided carbon data in all different formats (or not at all), leaving the company with “a tower of Babel of emissions data,” as an insider described. Without a common method to gather and compare these numbers, the company had no clear picture of where it stood or how to improve.

But on the other hand, those who do get a grip on the data are finding that knowledge is powerful. When you can see precisely which routes, vehicles, or delivery options pump out the most CO₂, you can start changing them. “Shared data is the foundation of shared responsibility. In all logistics networks, transparency on emissions is the first step to building effective decarbonization strategies,” says Inge Tanke, a sustainable logistics consultant. In short: measure better, and you can manage better.

The good news is that technology is rising to meet the challenge. New software platforms now pull in detailed info from carriers and crunch it into usable insights. For example, our Emissions Tracker consolidates all shipping data and calculates CO₂ output per parcel using standardized methods. Instead of broad guesses, it uses specifics like the vehicle’s fuel type and route for each shipment, filling gaps with modeled data aligned to global standards. The result is a single dashboard that gives retailers and supply chain teams a precise view of their delivery emissions across every carrier and route. Suddenly, those hidden inefficiencies come into focus. A lane that’s using older gas trucks, a distribution center sending half-empty vans, an express shipping option that doubles emissions for minimal speed gains: all of these “hotspots” light up once you have granular data.

Crucially, better data isn’t just about compliance; it’s driving strategy. “In many cases, businesses can achieve major improvements with simpler solutions like automation or enhanced data intelligence,” notes nShift’s Fredrik Lindhagen. He’s seen companies use shipment-level carbon tracking to make tangible tweaks: switching to a cleaner carrier on a high-emission route, combining deliveries in the same neighborhood to avoid duplicate trips, or rerouting orders to a closer warehouse. Each small fix trims waste from the system - not only carbon, but time and cost as well.

In fact, companies are learning that cutting carbon often goes hand-in-hand with cutting costs. When a logistics team identifies an inefficient route that’s burning excess fuel, fixing it means fewer emissions and fewer fuel expenses. When they notice an overseas supplier is sending half-empty containers, they can consolidate shipments to save on freight spend while reducing emissions per unit.

The data-driven approach is yielding some eye-opening wins. One global shipper found that by analyzing delivery emissions, they could pinpoint routes where actual CO₂ output was nearly three times higher (or in some cases half as much) as what their generic estimates showed. That variance was a wake-up call and it empowered them to target the worst offenders first.

Reinventing the last mile: Beyond the diesel van

All the number-crunching in the world would mean little if it didn’t lead to action on the ground. Fortunately, across the logistics industry, 2024–2025 is becoming the era of doing, not just pledging. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the last-mile delivery – those final few miles from a local hub to the customer’s door, long known as the most inefficient (and carbon-intensive) leg of the journey. Here, a blend of old-fashioned ingenuity and new technology is transforming how packages get delivered – and how customers experience it.

In city centers, for instance, bicycle couriers and electric vans are taking over streets once dominated by diesel trucks, driven by both business logic and local laws. Take Stockholm: the Swedish capital announced plans to ban combustion-engine vehicles from parts of downtown, accelerating the shift to cleaner vehicles.

Logistics providers reacted fast. A new study shows that if a large delivery player moved to a fleet with 80% e-cargo bikes and 20% e-vans, it could cut its last-mile emissions nearly 80% while actually saving money on fuel and maintenance. In fact, for a typical big carrier moving 2 billion parcels a year, that mixed fleet approach is projected to save about €554 million annually by 2030 in operating costs. It’s a powerful proof that green logistics can align with profit. No wonder major parcel companies are piloting cargo bike programs in dense cities worldwide, returning to their pedal-powered roots in a high-tech way.

But sustainability isn’t only about what vehicles you use; it’s also how you orchestrate deliveries. Logistics teams are getting smarter about routing and customer engagement to avoid emissions in the first place.

One simple example: failed delivery attempts (when a customer isn’t home) lead to repeat trips and double the mileage. By leveraging better post-purchase engagement tools, like allowing customers to reschedule or redirect a delivery in real time, companies are cutting down on those wasteful extra trips.

Similarly, many retailers are turning to out-of-home delivery options such as lockers or pickup points. These consolidate dozens of individual door-drop trips into one stop, drastically reducing total drive distance. And customers are embracing it: they appreciate the convenience and the eco-friendliness of not having four different vans swing by their street in a day.

Even the checkout page on e-commerce sites has become a battleground for sustainable choices. Research in the Netherlands recently revealed that the way delivery options are presented can make a huge difference. When one online shop made the low-emission delivery its default choice (rather than an obscure opt-in), the share of customers choosing that eco-friendly option jumped from just 8% to over 30%. That’s a massive shift achieved not by guilt-tripping shoppers, but by nudging them with smart design.

In response, companies are redesigning their websites to make the greener choice the easier choice – for example, pre-selecting an “eco-delivery (2-3 days)” option, or adding little leaf icons and CO₂ savings info next to it. Shoppers can still opt out to faster shipping if they want, but most stick with the default when it’s reasonable. These subtle tweaks are turning consumer good intentions into real action, and retailers reap the benefits of lower delivery costs and consolidated shipments.

When sustainability becomes strategy

All these changes – better data, greener fleets, empowered customers – point to a larger transformation: sustainability is moving from a side project to the core of logistics strategy. What was once dismissed as a PR exercise or a compliance chore is now yielding competitive advantages (without the clichés). Operations leaders are finding that optimizing for carbon often means optimizing for efficiency overall. If you need to report your emissions in detail, you’re naturally driven to reduce them – and that process can streamline your whole operation. Think of it as cutting out the “air” and wasted motion in the system.

For instance, shipment-level carbon tracking has begun to double as a growth lever. Retailers who can show customers an accurate carbon footprint for different delivery options are using that transparency to build trust (and even nudge buyers toward greener choices). Eco-conscious shoppers respond positively – given a clear, guilt-free shipping choice, they’re more likely to hit “purchase” and feel good about it. Some companies are even marketing their sustainable delivery options as a premium feature, not a sacrifice.

On the cost side, one supply chain director joked that their CFO became the biggest sustainability champion once it was clear how much money inefficient routes and returns were wasting. By spotlighting routes where trucks drove empty or orders crisscrossed unnecessarily, carbon data helped eliminate those pain points, boosting margins. And critically, being ahead on emissions tracking means these businesses are ready for the next wave of regulations and investor scrutiny, avoiding last-minute scrambles and building a reputation for reliability.

Progress is far from uniform, of course. Industry-wide, many companies are still early in this journey. Surveys show that nearly half of logistics providers haven’t set clear decarbonization targets yet, and only about a quarter feel confident they can meet such goals.

But the momentum is clearly shifting. McKinsey analysts project that using today’s technologies, companies can achieve roughly a 40-50% reduction in logistics emissions by 2030 – a remarkable figure that seemed out of reach just a few years ago. Achieving it will require scaling up electric vehicles, route optimization, intermodal transport, better warehouse energy use, and more. Yet every one of those pieces is already being proven in the field. The innovation isn’t theoretical; it’s happening in real delivery networks, right now. As one logistics CEO quipped, “The stone age didn’t end for lack of stones, and the diesel age isn’t ending for lack of diesel - it’s because we found something better.”

From visibility to action

Perhaps the most unexpected shift in sustainable logistics has been psychological. The conversation has moved from “why” to “how”. A few years ago, operations teams had to be convinced to care about carbon. Today, whether out of external pressure or internal conviction, most are on board with the mission - now they just want to know the best way forward. And that’s where the storytelling comes full circle: data and storytelling, in fact, are two sides of the same coin. The data provides the hard evidence and direction, and the stories provide the inspiration and urgency. A single vivid example – like that quiet Copenhagen street now humming with e-bikes instead of exhaust-spewing vans – can galvanize change far beyond one neighborhood. It shows in tangible terms what’s possible.

In 2025, a logistics manager’s dashboard might feature not just the usual metrics of on-time delivery and costs, but a prominent emissions score as well. And that number will tell a story: of all the choices made across the supply chain that week, good or bad. The leaders in the field are determined to see that score move downward. They’re fostering a culture of continuous improvement – tweaking packaging to remove empty space (why ship air and waste fuel?), incentivizing customers to choose pickup locations, and collaborating with partners on greener solutions. Every quarter, they seek to report not just emissions data for compliance, but a trend line that proves they’re making progress. One sustainability chief described it as turning carbon accounting into a kind of fitness tracker for the business: “Once you start measuring, you can’t help but try to beat your last score.”

What’s clear is that visibility is the foundation for all this action. As the saying goes, you can’t change what you don’t measure. With modern tools bringing unprecedented visibility into delivery emissions (down to each package’s journey), logistics teams finally have a mirror to look into. Some might not love what they see at first – inefficiencies and needless pollution can be uncomfortable to confront – but it’s better to see clearly than to live in a convenient fog. And increasingly, customers, investors, and regulators are peering into that mirror too. Transparency is becoming the norm.

The silver lining is that when you do the right thing for the planet, it often turns out to be the right thing for the business. Shorter routes and fuller trucks mean less fuel burned and fewer dollars spent. Happier customers mean repeat business. Complying with reporting rules means being ahead of the curve, earning trust instead of fines. It’s a virtuous cycle that is starting to feed on itself.

Logistics has always been about efficiency and reliability. Now sustainability is joining that core list of metrics to hit. And the industry is discovering that a sustainable logistics operation is, in many ways, simply a better logistics operation. As one study after another has shown, there’s plenty of low-hanging fruit to pick – in some cases, literally half of the emissions in freight and warehousing could be eliminated with existing solutions. The journey won’t be easy, but it’s underway.

In the end, it comes back to those everyday stories: the warehouse tinkering with its packaging processes to eliminate “shipping oxygen” in half-empty boxes, the retailer who reconfigures a checkout page and overnight triples the uptake of green delivery choices, the carrier that opens a micro-hub so bikes can do what vans used to. Individually, each is a modest improvement. Together, they add up to a new paradigm in how we ship goods in a warming world. Sustainable logistics is here, in motion, on the ground. And as the data keeps flowing and the success stories keep spreading, the question for every logistics manager is shifting from “Can we afford to do this?” to “Can we afford not to?”.