绿色物流外文翻译

1、绿色物流外文翻译 外文翻译原文Green Logistics The Paradoxes ofMaterial source:The Handbook of Logistics and Supply-Chain Management Author:Brewer, K.J. Button and D.A. Hensher Introduction: The Issue of Green Logistics The two words that make up the title of this chapter are each charged with meaning, but combined

2、, they form a phrase that is particularly evocative. Logistics are at the heart of modern transport systems. As has been demonstrated earlier, the term implies a degree organization and control over freight movements that only modern technology could have brought into being. It has become one of the

3、 most important developments in the transportation industry. Greenness has become a code-word for a range of environmental concerns, and is usually considered positively. It is employed to suggest compatibility with the environment, and thus, like logistics is something that is beneficial. When put

4、together the two words suggest an environmentally-friendly and efficient transport and distribution system. The term has wide appeal, and is seen by many as eminently desirable. However, as we explore the concept and its applications in greater detail, a great many paradoxes and inconsistencies aris

5、e, which suggest that its application may be more difficult than what might have been expected on first encounter. In this chapter we begin by considering how the term has been developed and applied in the transportation industry. Although there has been much debate about green logistics over the la

6、st ten years or so, the transportation industry has developed very narrow and specific interests. When the broader interpretations are attempted it will be shown that there are basic inconsistencies between the goals and objectives of logistics and greenness. We conclude this chapter by exploring ho

7、w these paradoxes might be resolved. Development and Application of Green Logistics In common with many other areas of human endeavour, greenness became a catchword in the transportation industry in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It grew out of the growing awareness of environmental problems, and i

8、n particular with well-publicised issues such as acid rain, CFCs and global warming. The World Commission on Environment and Development Report, with its establishment of environmental sustainability as a goal for international action, gave green issues a significant boost in political and economic

9、arenas. The transportation industry is a major contributor to environmental degradation through its modes, infrastructures and traffics. The developing field of logistics was seen by many as an opportunity for the transportation industry to present a more environmentally-friendly face. During the ea

10、rly 1990s there was an outpouring of studies, reports and opinion pieces suggesting how the environment could be incorporated in the logistics industry. It was reported that the 1990s would be the decade of the environment. As we look back on the decade we can observe that interest in the environmen

11、t by the logistics industry manifested itself most clearly in terms of exploiting new market opportunities. While traditional logistics seeks to organise forward distribution, that is the transport, warehousing, packaging and inventory management from the producer to the consumer, environmental cons

12、iderations opened up markets for recycling and disposal, and led to an entire new sub-sector: reverse logistics. This reverse distribution involves the transport of waste and the movement of used materials. While the term reverse logistics is widely used, other names have been applied, such as rever

13、se distribution, reverse-flow logistics, and green logistics. Inserting logistics into recycling and the disposal of waste materials of all kinds, including toxic and hazardous goods, has become a major new market. There are several variants. An important segment is customer-driven, where domestic w

14、aste is set aside by home-dwellers for recycling. This has achieved wide popularity in many communities, notably because the public became involved in the process. A second type is where non-recyclable waste, including hazardous materials, is transported for disposal to designated sites. As land fil

15、ls close to urban areas become scarce, waste has to be transported greater distances to disposal centres. A different approach is where reverse distribution is a continuous embedded process in which the organisation manufacturer or distributor takes responsibility for the delivery of new products as

16、 well as their take-back. This would mean environmental considerations through the whole life-cycle of a product production, distribution, consumption and disposal. For example, BMW is designing a vehicle whose parts will be entirely recyclable. How the logistics industry has responded to the enviro

17、nmental imperatives is not unexpected, given its commercial and economic imperatives, but by virtually overlooking significant issues, such as pollution, congestion, resource depletion, means that the logistics industry is still not very green. This conclusion is borne out by published surveys. Murp

18、hy et al 1994 asked members of the Council for Logistics Management what were the most important environmental issues relating to logistics operations. The two leading issues selected were hazardous waste disposal and solid waste disposal. Two thirds of respondents identified these as being of great

19、 or imum importance. The least important issues identified were congestion and land use, two elements usually considered of central importance by environmentalists. When asked to identify the future impact of environmental issues on logistical functions, again waste disposal and packaging were chose

20、n as leading factors. Customer service, inventory control, production scheduling ? logistical elements ? were seen to have negligible environmental implications. This suggests that at the beginning of the 21st Century the logistics industry in general is still a long way from being considered green.

21、 Reverse logistics has been its major environmental pre-occupation. While this is an important step, recycling being one of the important elements in sustainability, many other environmentally significant considerations remain largely unaddressed. Are the achievements of transport logistics compatib

22、le with the environment? The Green Paradoxes of Logistics in Transport Systems 1 Costs The purpose of logistics is to reduce costs, notably transport costs. In addition, economies of time and improvements in service reliability, including flexibility, are further objectives. Corporations involved in

23、 the physical distribution of freight are highly supportive of strategies that enable them to cut transport costs in the present competitive environment. The cost-saving strategies pursued by logistic operators are often at variance with environmental considerations, however. Environmental costs are

24、 often externalized. This means that the benefits of logistics are realised by the users and eventually to the consumer if the benefits are shared along the supply chain, but the environment assumes a wide variety of burdens and costs. Society in general, and many individuals in particular, are beco

25、ming less willing to accept these costs, and pressure is increasingly being put on governments and corporations to include greater environmental considerations in their activities. Although there is a clear trend for governments, at least in their policy guidelines, to make the users pay the full co

26、sts of using the infrastructures, logistical activities have largely escaped these initiatives. The focus of much environmental policy is on private cars emission controls, gas mixtures and pricing. While there are increasingly strict regulations being applied to air transport noise and emissions, t

27、he degree of control over trucking, rail and maritime modes is less. For example diesel fuel is significantly cheaper than gasoline in many jurisdictions, despite the negative environmental implications of the diesel engine. Yet trucks contribute on average 7 times more per vehicle-km to nitrogen ox

28、ides emissions than cars and 17 times more for particulate matter. The trucking industry is likely to avoid the bulk of environmental externalities it creates, notably in North America. The external costs of transport have been the subject of extensive research. Early gross estimates suggested conge

29、stion costs to account on average for 8.5% of the GDP and from 2.0 to 2.5% for safety. Recent estimates in Europe suggest that annual costs amount to a figure between 32 and 56 billion ECU. Cooper et al 1998 estimate the costs in Britain at 7 billion ECU, or twice the amount collected by vehicle tax

30、ation. In addition, the hub structures of logistical systems result in a land take that is exceptional. Airports, seaports and rail terminals are among the largest consumers of land in urban areas. For many airports and seaports the costs of development are so large that they require subsidies from

31、local, regional and national governments. The dredging of channels in ports, the provision of sites, and operating expenses are rarely completely reflected in user costs. In the United States, for example local dredging costs, were nominally to come out of a harbour improvement tax but this has been

32、 ruled unconstitutional and channel maintenance remains under the authority of the US Corps of Army Engineers. In Europe, national and regional government subsidies are used to assist infrastructure and superstructure provision. The trend in logistics towards hub formation is clearly not green. The

33、actors involved in logistical operations have a strong bias to perceive green logistics as a mean to internalize cost savings, while avoiding the issue of external costs. As underlined earlier, a survey among the managers of logistical activities pointed out that the top environmental priority is re

34、ducing packaging and waste Murphy et al 1994. Managers were also strongly against any type of governmental regulation pertaining to the environmental impacts of logistics. These observations support the paradoxical relationship between logistics and the environment that reducing costs does not neces

35、sarily reduce environmental impacts. 2 Reliability At the heart of logistics is the overriding importance of service reliability. Its success is based upon the ability to deliver freight on time with the least threat of breakage or damage. Logistics providers often realise these objectives by utilis

36、ing the modes that are perceived as being most reliable. The least polluting modes are generally regarded as being the least reliable in terms of on-time delivery, lack of breakage and safety. Ships and railways have inherited a reputation for poor customer satisfaction, and the logistics industry i

37、s built around air and truck shipments the two least environmentally-friendly modes. 3 Warehousing Logistics is an important factor promoting globalization and international flows of commerce. Modern logistics systems economies are based on the reduction of inventories, as the speed and reliability

38、of deliveries removes the need to store and stockpile. Consequently, a reduction in warehousing demands is one of the advantages of logistics. This means however, that inventories have been transferred to a certain degree the transport system, especially the roads. This has been confirmed empiricall

39、y. In a survey of 87 large British firms cited by McKinnon 1998, there had been a 39 per cent reduction in the number of warehouses and one third of the firms indicated an increased amount of truck traffic, although the increase was thought to be small in most cases. Inventories are actually in tran

40、sit, contributing still further to congestion and pollution. The environment and society, not the logistical operators, are assuming the external costs. Not all sectors exhibit this trend, however. In some industrial sectors, computers for example, there is a growing trend for vertical disintegratio

41、n of the manufacturing process, in which extra links are added to the logistical chain. Intermediate plants where some assembly is undertaken have been added between the manufacturer and consumer. While facilitating the customizing of the product for the consumer, it adds an additional external move

42、ment of products in the production line.译文绿色物流(即悖论)资料来源:物流与供应链手册 作者:布鲁尔,K.J.巴顿和D.A.寒舍尔简介:关于绿色物流的一个问题 绿色和物流这两个词构成了本文标题意义,两者相结合,就形成一个短语,特别令人回味。“物流”是在现代运输系统的核心。顾名思义该术语早些时候她有一定程度的组织,但仅在是在控制在货运运动方面,只有现代技术的孕育之下才诞生的。它已成为运输行业发展中最重要的一部分。“绿色化”现今已成为一系列的环境问题的代名词,并且通常被认为是积极的。它是用来显示与环境相容性,因此,物流是有益的。当这两个词组合在一起时,建议

43、建立以环保及快捷的运输为主体的物流配送体系。虽然这个词具有广泛的号召力,但是在很多人看来却并不可取。然而,当我越研究的深入,发现的问题就越多,而且遇到的困难比想象中的还要大。 在这一章中,我们考虑如何使已开始应用的交通运输行业的得到长远发展。尽管对于绿色物流的争议已经持续了十年左右,但是运输产业的发展还是很狭隘。当很多研究表明,当“物流”和 “绿色”在基本目标不一致时,会产生矛盾。而在这一章,我们将探讨如何解决这些矛盾。 绿色物流的发展与应用 与人类活动的许多其他领域一样,“绿色”在运输行业成为一个口号是在80年代末和90年代初。它的前身是对环境问题的意识日益增强,尤其是诸如酸雨,全球气候变暖

44、的氟氯化碳和广为宣传的问题。世界环境与发展委员会报告,成立以环境可持续发展为目标,给环保问题显著提高到政治和经济领域。从其模式、基础设施和流量等方面,交通行业是是环境恶化的主要因素。物流发展的领域,被视为运输行业的一个机会,提出更环保面临的问题。在20世纪90年代初有一个研究报告,报告建议环境如何在物流业相结合。 当我们回首十年,可以看到,在物流业所表现出来的环境利益很清楚体现在新的开拓市场等方面机会。虽然传统的物流旨在组织分配问题,即运输,仓储,包装和库存管理从生产者到消费者,但环境因素开辟了回收处理市场,并产生了一个新分部门:逆向物流。此逆向物流涉及废物的运输和材料的再次使用。尽管 “逆向

45、物流”被广泛使用,但是也被称为“反向配送”,“逆向物流流程”。 关于回收物流和各类废料,包括有毒废料和危险品处置,已成为一个重要的新市场。有几个类型:一种重要类型是客户驱动,其中生活垃圾是由居民自己把垃圾运到回收站,这已经取得了许多社区欢迎,主要是因为市民乐于参与这一进程。第二种类型是非循环再造的废物,包括有害物质,是运到指定地点处置。由于市区附近土地已经很缺乏,废物不得不被运送到更远距离的处置中心。另一种类型是供应商或者代销商自己负责把废旧产品进行回收,这将意味着在整个产品的生命周期(生产,流通,消费和处置)对环境的考虑。例如,宝马汽车的设计部分将完全回收利用。 物流业如何回应了环境要求问题是在意料之中,因为其商业和经济需要,但实际上忽视许多重大问题,如污染,交通拥堵,资源耗尽,这些都意味着物流业仍然不是很“绿色”。这一结论得到已发表的调查证实。墨菲等人要求物流管理协会成员对什么是最重要的物流业务环境问题进行调查。这两个选择的主要问题是危险废物的处理和固体废物的处置。三分之二的受访者认定最重要的环境问题就是这些。并且还发现重要问题是土地使用,通常由环保考虑两个因素至