Sustainable distribution refers to any means of transportation / hauling of goods between vendor and purchaser with lowest possible impact on the ecological and social environment, and includes the whole distribution process from storage, order processing and picking, packaging, improved vehicle loadings, delivery to the customer or purchaser and taking back packaging.
By means of optimizing a country's transport infrastructure, the distance that products travel can be reduced by creating more localized supply chains and by shifting from roads to rail or from air to sea.
[6] Another means to reduce environmental impacts of distribution processes is to face the increased convenience expectations of customers towards availability of fresh and seasonal food.
[13] Labeling is an important means of communicating with consumers about sustainable consumption, and it plays a critical role in shopping for food and domestic appliances.
There is a challenge for consumers to recognize, understand, and cope with the sheer number of emerging labels that deal with specific aspects of the sustainability agenda.
[2] Reverse logistics has become an important extension within the supply chain as it carries high potential for a sustainable distribution process that fulfills both environmental and social needs.
Additionally, vehicle loadings can be optimized as empty return trips of trucks employed for distribution processes are avoided in case they take back materials.
As a higher goal, reverse logistics may also contribute to lower producers’ dependency on scarce or non-renewable resources by remanufacturing and reusing recycled materials for the production of new goods.
[14] The implementation of reverse logistics faces a number of challenges with respect to sustaining competitiveness of products and to conform to convenience expectations of customers.
In the following, direct (working conditions of staff, noise, high levels of traffic, pollution) and indirect (changing landscapes) social impact can be distinguished.