Sustainability—Indispensable Part of the Logistics Development

Abstract

Each company operating in a free market economy wants to reduce the cost of its activities. But often managers attempt to reduce costs pushing them into other actors operating in the supply chain or even to its surrounding environment. Consequently, such actions are very short-sighted, because all the costs generated by the logistics network are finally being felt in the external environment and price of the final product. Indeed focus should be on fighting disturbance in the supply chain, that include the sustainability issues. Main objective of the chapter is a presentation of different sustainability dimensions with its future development, as well as introduction of Physical Internet influence on logistic challenges in terms of sustainable growth. Following social, business and technology trends by improving cooperation and better access to information among cells operating in the supply networks and their surrounding lead to significant positive results especially in fast growing FMCG industry, as the author presents later in the chapter.