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GOING FOR THE GOLD: Starbuck’s first-ever Gold LEED-certified coffee roasting plant in Sandy Run, SC, was designed and built by Stellar and completed in 2009.

...towards reducing your carbon footprint. In an exclusive interview, APL’s Gary Griffith offers other ways to achieve environmental sustainability.

Henry Ford once reportedly said that a customer could choose any color for his car that he wanted “so as long as it was black.”

Today’s logistics professionals can surely relate, although their color of choice is decidedly brighter.

“There are a lot of things a well-functioning distribution center in this day and age needs to do,” says Gary Griffith, an executive director at warehousing and supply chain company APL Logistics, Oakland, CA. “But one of the foremost is to be green and support its company’s efforts to reduce its carbon footprint.”

As concerns about global warming gain momentum—and more logistics professionals participate in voluntary environmental initiatives—Food Logistics sat down with Griffith to get his perspective on how companies can use a wide variety of warehouse and other supply chain design principles to make sustainability work for them.

When you hear the terms “sustainability” and “facility design,” what’s the first thing that comes to mind?

Site selection. Freight movement typically accounts for far more of a company’s carbon footprint than warehousing. As a result, the most important green warehouse design initiative a company can undertake is often network optimization.