The Greening of the warehousing industry in Ontario : an analytical study of the extent of present day environmental sustainability programs

The purpose of the paper is to explore the extent to which the Ontario warehousing industry has embraced environmental sustainability within its business strategy. This will provide a needed baseline on the current state of practice in the Province. This could also lay the foundation for future work in Ontario, particularly with respect to where improvements can be made. Data was collected through a review of Leonard’s Guide, a content analysis of publicly available information, and a survey of warehousing companies in Ontario. Multiple methods of collecting data were utilized for triangulation and to protect against the possibility not enough data would be available by one alone. The findings indicate that there have been some inroads made in implementing environmental sustainability programs within the warehousing industry of Ontario, but there is still room for improvement. The findings also indicate that third-party logistics (3PL) are more likely than warehousing/distribution companies to implement environmental sustainability programs, as are companies which had their trade areas beyond the borders of Canada.