Purchasing green transport and logistics services: implications for small business

The recent evolution of the logistics service industry shows how 3PLs are playing a more critical role in the supply chain than in the past. The implication is that these companies are in a critical position to support the efforts towards environmental sustainability of supply chain operations. Nevertheless, most of the literature (Srivastava, 2007) and empirical studies (see, for example: Eltayeb and Zailani, 2009; Hong et al., 2009) on sustainability in logistics and SCM have been directed towards manufacturing companies. Surprisingly, environmental practices in services have only recently attracted the attention of researchers (Kassinis and Soteriou, 2003; Wolf and Seuring, 2010; Lieb and Lieb, 2010), and in logistics services particularly. This paper seeks to bridge the gap between the perspectives of buyers and sellers of logistics services, and the gap in literature through an analysis from the perspective of the purchaser of logistics services. The main objective of this paper is to analyse which challenges the buyers of logistics service face, based on the level of commitment to environmental sustainability goals among 3PL companies. More specifically, the paper will address the following questions: 1.Which challenges do the 3PLs awareness of the importance of sustainability present to the buyers? 2.Which challenges do the level of adoption of sustainability initiatives among 3PLs present to the buyers? 3.How can drivers and barriers for adopting sustainability initiatives among 3PLs affect the behaviour of the buyer?