Transport Service Purchasing for Environmental Performance in the Food Industry Relational Tensions in a Cold Chain Transport Service Triad

Abstract

Despite the growing importance of sustainability in supply chains, environmental criteria in freight transport purchasing often fail to translate from the procurement contracts into daily operations. This thesis investigates the reasons for the gap and its persistence in freight transport procurement by analyzing transport purchasing through the transport service triad – a network consisting of a shipper, a logistics service provider and the shipper's customer. The empirical setting is a single embedded case study in a food cold chain with the actors being Skånemejerier (shipper), Tommy Nordbergh Åkeri (carrier/LSP) and ICA (retailer). The study is based on four semi-structured interviews with the three actors (137 minutes), along with company sustainability reports. Relational interface theory and paradox theory are used in the analysis to gain understanding of the interaction between the environmental ambitions and the operational logistics requirements. The findings show that the shipper-LSP relation operates at a translational interface characterized by shared fuel infrastructure and an open cost dialogue, partly enabled by the shipper's experience of operating its own fleet. The shipper-retailer relation on the other hand remains driven by specifications, as the Delivered Duty Paid (DDP) terms give authority to the retailer over delivery terms but shifts responsibility for the transport execution onto the shipper – restricting the knowledge exchange about how delivery specifications (e.g. time windows and ordering patterns) impact transport efficiency and emissions. Finally, showing that tensions which start at the retailer interface where DDP terms sustain an awareness gap, ripple across the triad. As a consequence the shipper-retailer relationship sets limits on what the shipper and LSP can ultimately achieve together