Working year 2007-2008

2008 was well on its way to being an excellent growth year until the financial storm put the entire world on edge and we went from boom to a dark economic scene.

The Deutsche Bank report ‘Investing in Climate Change 2009 – Necessity and Opportunity in Turbulent Times’, rightly states that the current economic downturn represents a great opportunity to innovate and to prepare for a low carbon future.

The starting point is redesigning the supply chain. Multi-partner information sharing, collaborative warehousing and collaborative transport to city hubs and regional consolidation hubs before onwards final distributions requires different infrastructure. It is indeed time to change the trans-European transport network policy. Green corridors should take consolidated freight flows to well-running and collaborative interfaces before last-mile deliveries by clean trucks.

Waterways are particularly suited to this innovation, having plenty of free capacity and being cheap to update. It is time to use this ‘underestimated’ asset if we want to reduce the carbon ‘footprint’ of our economies