Month: June 2020

Prologis says it is the first industrial property company to introduce a Europe-wide initiative to measure and reduce whole-life carbon emissions in all its new logistics buildings.

Launched on World Environment Day (5th June 2020) and designed to support the United Nation’s Decade of Action* campaign, Prologis will extend its 12-year UK partnership with climate change charity Cool Earth, and sustainability certification company The Planet Mark. The aim is to raise sustainability standards across the European industrial property sector and drive meaningful change through social empowerment.

From June 2020, Prologis will work with climate change charity, Cool Earth, to fund the protection of rainforest to mitigate the equivalent of unavoidable carbon emissions in its new buildings across Europe. The programme will help Cool Earth to protect an area of rainforest 31 times larger than the area of each building. This draws on the results of detailed Carbon Life Cycle Assessments to ensure that every development achieves a net environmental benefit, targeting carbon savings that are 5 times greater than the embodied carbon footprint of each building.

Partnering with the charity Cool Earth will allow Prologis to demonstrate a robust, science-based approach to the mitigation of climate change. through the protection of rainforest. This has also been shown to have extensive benefits for society, culture and biodiversity.

Whilst the protection of rainforest communities might at first seem far removed from European logistics real estate, the company says that we all must play our part in keeping rainforest standing. As the planet’s global safety net, supporting local people to protect rainforest is the smartest, most positive climate action there is, it says. Rainforest trees lock in a quarter of the world’s carbon emissions and generate moisture, which travels around the world, and accounts for a fifth of the planet’s fresh water. Rainforests also protect over six million species of plants and animals (with many still undiscovered), forming an essential ecosystem which is essential to our survival.

Simon Cox, UK head of sustainability for Prologis in the UK explained why the company is pleased to be extending its commitment to environmental stewardship, social responsibility, and governance (ESG) in this way:

“Prologis has a long-standing and enduring commitment to ESG, and we strive to go above and beyond industry standards in terms of sustainability. ‘Embodied carbon’ – which is the carbon emitted during the construction of a new building – can be reduced through good design, but it cannot be eliminated altogether. Developers should be thinking about ways to mitigate these emissions by actively protecting the environment and supporting the development of sustainable communities.

“By working with Cool Earth, we can support people who live in the rainforest to protect trees that we rely on globally to store carbon, produce fresh water, and shield diverse species of plants and animals. We make the donation to Cool Earth at the outset of each project precisely because the rainforest is so fragile, and we want to support the preservation of this ecosystem as soon as possible.”

Over the past 12 years, through its partnership with Cool Earth and The Planet Mark, Prologis’ buildings in the UK have been helping to protect 12,500 acres of rainforest in Peru and Papua New Guinea, going beyond ‘net-zero’ in terms of embodied carbon. Prologis is helping rainforest communities to lock in 3.5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide by protecting 3.2 million trees mitigating an estimated 600,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions. As part of this partnership, the company has also educated 7,500 pupils at schools close to its logistics parks through sustainability workshops. Delivered by The Eden Project, these workshops are offered free of charge to local schools and aim to help children understand the important role they can all play in protecting the planet.

Bristol based Coveya Ltd specialises in the design, manufacture and supply of conveyor systems & parts, working with customers throughout the UK and worldwide. In response to the current COVID-19 crisis, it has created Mist-Safe, a sanitiser unit that can fit over a gravity roller conveyor, which uses mist disinfectant to make cardboard boxes and cartons safe to use.

It follows the launch of COV-Screen, a freestanding or countertop protection screen product.

The company claims Mist-Safe can sanitise up to 60 cartons per minute using four mist spray nozzles and a sensor which ensures that mist is only released if a carton is passing through the housing unit. The mist is controlled without the need for any intervention.

It has been designed with food and healthcare distribution centres in mind that want to ensure delivery cartons are safe, whilst reassuring their customers of their own commitment to mitigating the spread of COVID-19 however, many other businesses can take advantage of this unique product which is being manufactured at Coveya’s site.

With the Covid-19 pandemic forcing many companies to increase stock levels and reshape supply chains, as well as driving an ever-greater reliance on on-line shopping, leading property consultancy Gent Visick believes there are interesting times ahead for the logistics sector and big shed market. Director Andrew Gent, explains.

Imagine it being Christmas every week? This has been the situation which the supermarkets and on-line retailers have faced since the onset of the Covid-19 lockdown. The level of demand for certain products had simply overwhelmed their existing supply chains. The advantage of Christmas is that it is a single fixed date for which retailers can build their stock levels and gear up their distribution operations, the lockdown exposed the weaknesses inherent in supply chains which have been designed to maximise efficiencies and cut costs.

Many retailers have taken additional short-term warehouse space to increase their stockholding and have re-geared to find alternate suppliers and with China now back on-line the situation is easing, although it has taken some unusual steps to get there.

The temporary relaxation of the competition rules in the food retail sector has seen some pooling of resources, warehousing, vehicles and staff to enable the retailers to once more fill the shelves and avoid further panic buying.
The Government have announced that, subject to observing the new social distancing guidelines, all shops can re-open on the 15th of June. However, will there be a mass return to the high street, or will people’s concerns continue to drive the expansion of the on-line retail sector?

Food retailers have already noted a return to the ‘weekly shop’ with customers seeking to limit their exposure and it is still difficult to secure an online shopping slot. For hundreds of alternate goods online shopping has become a way of life. Whilst the high street re-opens, it may be some time before the public have the confidence to return in numbers. With those that can still working from home, the convenience of home delivery may continue to outweigh the perceived risk of going out.

The response to date has been a flurry of short-term large warehouse acquisitions and increased demand for smaller space, suitable for additional home delivery hubs. There has also been a race for open storage land close to the main ports as the flow of containers returns to pre-Covid levels, but with retail outlets closed there is somewhat of a logjam at the moment.

Looking to the mid-term, should demand for online shopping continue at the current rate, there will be further demand for some 14 million square feet of additional warehousing space across the country. With limited standing stock and existing pressure on the supply of employment land, this should help to maintain current rental and capital values.

With supply chains adapting to carry more stock, manufactures looking to re-shore elements of production and diversifying production to avoid being too reliant upon a single market, we would again expect to see demand for additional warehouse space as we move on from the lockdown.

However, all this does rather depend on the overall economic position and household confidence to maintain sales and demand for goods. With several large companies already announcing significant numbers of redundancies and a number of smaller companies, particularly in the hotel and leisure sector failing, the level of unemployment will grow. Inevitably this will impact upon consumer confidence which will lead to reduced demand for goods and services.

That said, the changing shifts in supply chains, evolving patterns of consumer shopping, a nervousness to return to the high street allied to home working and the convenience of home delivery, will create future demand for additional stockholding warehouses and home delivery hubs. All of this certainly bodes well for the logistics sector.

Loading bay solution specialist Thorworld Industries has devised safe practice methods to continue operations during the COVID-19 pandemic, it says. By adopting a ‘complete compliance’ operational approach regarding social distancing and safe working systems at its Derbyshire factory, the manufacturer has been able to continue supplying emergency loading apparatus to hospital environments where COVID-19 patients are being treated.

Although factory operations may have been functioning at a reduced capacity, the Thorworld team has successfully fulfilled key and essential loading equipment orders, including apparatus required within extremely short lead times.
Equipment, including standard Ground Level Container Ramps, has been distributed – ideal for allowing access into standard shipping containers via forklift trucks. Bespoke variations of the ramps have also been supplied to support fridge containers with higher internal floors and drainage channels.

Working compliantly, the Thorworld team has in many cases, been able to fulfil ‘next day’ order placement, helping to support frontline operations and offer solutions to distribution and delivery enterprises.