3PL ’ S SUSTAINABILITY BENEFITS increasingly far-flung and complex . One area where the business has amassed deep experience is in automotive supply chains . This can be traced back to the firm opening its first Mexico office more than 30 years ago when auto manufacturing clusters began to emerge . Now , auto parts are one of the top items moving across the US-Mexico border and CH Robinson manages no fewer than a million cross-border shipments in the region every year .
For most freight , this requires a crossdocking facility , where goods from a Mexican trailer are transferred to a US trailer . CH Robinson recently opened the
Arun maintains that a more efficient supply chain is , by nature , a more sustainable one .
He explains that , if a customer ’ s weekly freight from Los Angeles to Chicago is consistently seven different LTL shipments from seven different vendors , a 3PL can bundle that freight into one truckload .
“ That ’ s six cross-country shipments and a whole lot of emissions saved ,” he says .
“ Through purchase order aggregation and mode conversion , we helped one of the largest outdoor retailers reduce their carbon footprint by 1,270 metric tons in one year – the equivalent of 3,000 barrels of oil .
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