Fulfilling Your Sustainability Ambitions: Meeting Your ESG Goals With a Profitable Warehouse Operation

The Green Path to Profit: AutoStore's ESG-Focused Fulfillment

Both conscious consumers and conscious businesses understand that every product purchased, service used, and decision made has an impact on the environment, society, or both. Responsible, ethical fulfillment can have a significant role in mitigating that impact, either by reducing emissions or improving working standards for employees.

Practically every business today (whether for ethical or commercial reasons) is deeply involved in environmental, social, and governance (ESG) concerns. In fact, a strong ESG proposition can drive value and profit, not least from building resilience into the business model, minimizing regulatory and legal interventions, and optimizing investment and capital expenditures^[1] - PWC found that businesses with higher ESG scores can reduce the cost of capital by up to 10%.^[2]

At AutoStore, we’re aware of the positive impact we can have in helping our clients reach their sustainability goals. So, with that in mind, let’s look at how we could also help you remodel your fulfillment strategy to drive ESG initiatives and deliver positives for people, planet, and profit.

Reducing Carbon Footprints: AutoStore's Greener Warehousing

Warehouses lie at the heart of any fulfillment business and the acceleration of e-commerce is driving demand for more warehousing space. Yet, fulfillment centers require large amounts of energy. So, expansion means more emissions. This makes warehousing a key area on which you can focus to help reduce your carbon footprint. And we can help in a variety of ways.

Our unique modular design allows you to make more of your space. By increasing storage density by 4x, you can grow your business without growing your carbon footprint. Additionally, our Robots are designed with energy efficiency in mind and have helped some of our clients reduce their electrical usage by 75%.

E-Commerce giant Active Ants runs 88 AutoStore Robots across 69,500 Bins, delivering items to pickers at 15 workstations, and Founder Jeroen Dekker says, “The system is very ecologically friendly and therefore sustainable.”

‍

AutoStore's ESG Revolution: From Warehouses to Micro-Fulfillment

We can also help you shift fulfillment centers from vast, out-of-town warehouses to smaller, more agile places closer to urban areas, known as micro-fulfillment centers (MFC). MFCs bring products closer to customers to reduce delivery times and emissions and improve overall order fulfillment efficiency. For example, German retailer flaschenpost SE, implemented a multi-temperature AutoStore MFC to keep its promise of “drinks and groceries delivered in just 120 minutes”. Our technology enables them to process 1,000 customer orders per hour.

By enabling more efficient warehousing in smaller spaces in this way, our solution contributes to regenerating public space that has often had little to no investment. It's predicted that the last-mile supply chain made possible by local fulfillment centers could lower last-mile emissions by an average of 21.5% through 2025.^[3]

Using AutoStore technology also helps you maintain compliance with environmental regulations. To understand your impact, you need data. By digitalizing processes in warehousing and fulfillment, coupled with strong data governance, you can monitor emissions, identify opportunities, and track your ESG progress.

Berggård Amundsen: Powered by the Sun, Run by Robots

Berggård Amundsen partnered with AutoStore to build an environmentally friendly warehouse to streamline picking efficiency and remain at the forefront of a highly competitive market.

The warehouse covers 14,000 m² (150,695 sqf), has eight floors, 1,050 solar panels, and houses approximately 11,000 products. It’s known for being powered by renewable energy. The AutoStore Grid holds 17,000 inventory Bins and operates 17 Robots over four workstations.

The system has led to transformative benefits:

• Maximized picking efficiency
• Improved energy efficiency — the facility generates 230,000 kilowatt-hours of pure solar energy a year, powering AutoStore and the rest of the warehouse with solar energy
• Satisfied customers — local electricians can pick up their orders a mere 30 minutes after placing an order

Read the full case study here.

Reducing Emissions with AutoStore

Everything you do as a business has an impact beyond your operations, whether environmentally, societally, or on the individuals who operate in the communities where you’re based. At AutoStore, we’re acutely aware of our role as caretakers of the places we work in and will continue to help our customers make a strong contribution to a more sustainable world and future for all. We create incredible spaces for everyone.

Making a positive societal impact profitable has been identified as one of the 5 main challenges for global fulfillment in the next 5 years. To learn more, download our full research report today: 5 Challenges for Global Fulfillment in the Next 5 Years.

‍

__________________________________________________________________

‍

‍

Sources:‍

^{[1] https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/McKinsey/Business%20Functions/Strategy%20and%20Corporate%20Finance/Our%20Insights/Five%20ways%20that%20ESG%20creates%20value/Five-ways-that-ESG-creates-value.ashx#:~:text=From%20our%20experience%20and%20research,capital%20expenditures%20(Exhibit%202)}

^{[2] https://www.pwc.com/id/en/esg/esg-capability-statement.pdf}

^{[3] https://www.accenture.com/us-en/insights/consulting/sustainable-last-mile-delivery#:~:text=analysis%20is%20revealing.-,The%20last-mile%20supply%20chain%20made%20possible%20by%20local%20fulfillment,could%20lead%20to%20significant%20impacts.}

‍