Environmentally sustainable and resilient inbound logistics flows

Abstract

The European Union has set a target to be climate neutral with net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. This target has accelerated the demand for electric vehicles, with a corresponding increase for battery cells. Today, electric vehicle producers in Europe are relying on Asian battery suppliers, which impacts costs, resilience, and environmental sustainability. The European Union is making significant investments to expand their own battery production capacity. This study investigates how in- bound logistics design can support both environmental sustainability and resilience, focusing on material supply to a European battery cell production facility. A structured risk identification and assessment method was used to determine risks for three different transportation modes: road, rail, and sea. The analysis shows that long-sea transportation presents the highest risk values, followed by rail. The mode-specific risks were then translated into flow-specific risks, where three Euro- pean flows and one Asian flow were analyzed. The Asian flow presents the highest risks. In addition, European sourcing reduces transportation costs on average with 43%. However, there are exceptions where certain materials result in comparable or even slightly higher costs compared to Asian suppliers. Overall, when selecting an European supplier, the logistics costs are lower. However, in the context of bat- tery cell production, there is a high reliance on Asian suppliers, making it difficult to create a supply chain based only on Europe. A Delphi study was conducted to investigate the views of transportation providers on the future of environmentally sustainable transportation. This study included participants from European, Asian, and global transportation providers. The findings show that achieving zero emis- sion transportation is a complex task that requires collaboration of stakeholders. Barriers such as infrastructure limitations, fuel availability, customer demand, and the lack of a strong regulatory framework hinder widespread adoption. In addition, many differences were identified in the current state of transportation providers within Europe and between Europe and Asia. Furthermore, discussions regarding which transportation solutions will be part of 2050 are discussed, and a clear split in opinions emerged regarding the role of fossil fuels in 2050.