Wise Systems releases survey on sustainability and last-mile delivery

CAMBRIDGE, MA – Wise Systems, the leading AI-driven dispatch and routing platform provider powering last-mile delivery and service operations worldwide, today shared findings from its recent survey, Sustainability and Last-Mile Delivery. Survey respondents — representing a diversity of roles across the last-mile logistics space — weighed in on a range of questions and topics, including:

• The importance of sustainability as a business priority
• Primary benefits of sustainability to their business
• Planned sustainability initiatives
• How carbon neutrality fits in their company’s roadmap
• Top technologies needed to help achieve carbon neutrality

When ranking business priorities, sustainability was considered a Top 5 by one-third of all respondents. This is a positive indicator, since immediate concerns such as customer service, on-time deliveries, driver recruitment and retention, and cost savings were more pressing issues for the larger pool. Further, they identified key technologies to help achieve carbon neutrality, and saw numerous benefits to sustainability initiatives, including reduced carbon footprint, improved brand perception, and increased ROI.

“We’re happy to share these findings about key priorities for last-mile operators, and are grateful to participants for their candid responses,” said Allison Parker, Wise Systems’ Vice President of Marketing. “Sustainability is clearly a top-of-mind issue industry wide, and the innovations and efficiencies that we bring to our customers help them reduce fleet mileage and, in many cases, vehicles on the road. These tangible improvements driven by our machine learning and dynamic routing drive measurable progress toward their sustainability and carbon-reduction goals.”

Report Findings | Sustainability and Last-Mile Delivery

AI and ML ranked among Top 3 technologies to help achieve carbon neutrality. Although carbon neutrality is not an immediate goal for most respondents, it is on their radars and they ranked key technologies that could drive that goal. They included:

• Electric vehicles (50%)
• Solar arrays/power (32%)
• AI & machine learning (32%)
• Fleet management software (29%)
• Carbon tracking and documentation (26%)
• Energy management systems (24%)
• Resource management (21%)
• Other (11%)

Sustainability is a business priority, but follows key day-to-day concerns. In a competitive industry sustainability ranks highly while traditional last-mile, fleet-management issues top the list with customer service as the highest ranking issue. Priorities in rank order:

• Customer service
• On-time deliveries
• Driver recruitment & retention
• Cost savings
• Scaling operations to accommodate growth
• Sustainability/Cutting carbon emissions
• Reducing fleet miles
• Fleet-wide visibility
• Implementing next-generation technologies

Sustainability Initiatives Produce Many Benefits. When asked the main benefits of their organizations’ sustainability initiatives, respondents provided a wide variety of answers, including:

• Reduced carbon footprint (49%)
• Improved brand perception (42%)
• Increased ROI (40%)
• Improved customer experience (35%)
• Reduced fleet miles (33%)
• Tax credits (19%)
• Other (5%)

Planned Sustainability Initiatives. The top three sustainability initiatives companies are implementing, or are planning to implement soon, include:

• Decreasing fleet mileage/other routing improvements (56%)
• Recycling (44%)
• Energy-efficient lighting (33%)

Carbon Neutrality is not Currently on the Roadmap. Only 28% of the respondents said carbon neutrality was on their company’s roadmap. In addition, only 21% of companies surveyed publish a Corporate Sustainability Report (CSR). This may reflect the fact that larger, publicly held companies are taking the lead on long-term sustainability goals, and many of the players in the last-mile delivery space are smaller, local companies who are more focused on immediate business issues. Further, fewer than 30% of survey respondents said they were directly involved in sustainability initiatives. This highlights the opportunity to drive sustainability initiatives across the organization in order to accelerate progress in this key area.

About the Survey. The Wise Systems Sustainability and Last-Mile Delivery survey was conducted in Q3 2021 with participants including current clients and prospects. The survey aimed to understand the last-mile industry’s sentiments and plans about sustainability, and how it pertains to their companies. Survey respondents represented nearly every job title in the last-mile logistics space, from Field Coordinator to Director of Supply Chain Strategy to CEO. Companies surveyed also represented a range of industries, with the largest segment coming from the food and beverage sector. For more detail on the survey results, download the report here [hyperlink].

Learn more about how Wise Systems is helping to mitigate the environmental impact of last-mile delivery fleets in this video.

About Wise Systems
Trusted by the world’s largest brands, Wise Systems provides AI-driven dispatch and routing software that enables the perfect delivery experience. For last-mile operations that want to compete successfully in a dynamic world, the Wise Systems platform continuously improves fleet efficiency, performance, and customer service and reduces fleet mileage, carbon footprint and late deliveries. Wise Systems is headquartered in Cambridge, MA. For more information, visit www.wisesystems.com.