Green Logistics Development and Management in the Philippines - Research Paper Example

Among the various aspects of economic activity that most generates pollutants in the air, water and land, second to industrial production processes, is the transportation of goods and materials that contributes significantly to the carbon emissions in the air, the oil spills in the water, and the congestion of roads in urban living areas.The matter of green logistics is currently deemed most important by customers in the developed world, although the matter is gaining greater impetus in emerging and developing countries.

The Philippines is one such emerging economy where the importance of green logistics is attracting active attention and participation in the business sector and civil society. The country is an archipelago of 7,100 islands in the Pacific, situated northeast of Indonesia and southwest of Japan. The need for interisland transportation of agricultural and aquacultural produce and manufactured goods has given rise to a vibrant domestic shipping sector and an increasingly active air freight industry.

Increasingly, the international trade participation of the Philippines has enhanced the export and import of manufactured and agricultural goods, necessitating the construction of sea and airports that may accommodate the traffic volumes generated by cross border trade.The potential growth that may be expected in this country is significant, because of the abundance of its still untapped natural resources, and the availability of a comparatively low-cost educated English-speaking labour pool.

These have attracted multinational enterprises to outsource stages of their production processes in the country, either with their fully-owned subsidiaries or with domestic corporations, and thereby increasing the volumes of intermediate goods and materials to and from the country.In this study, the development and current state of green logistics in the Philippines shall be described and critiqued. The objectives of the study are to assess the effectiveness of efforts to enhance sustainability in the logistics sector and to recognize the successes and challenges that have resulted from these efforts.