Legal basis:
Acknowledging the importance of high speed broadband internet access, the Commission set out ambitious targets in the Communication from the Commission (COM(2012)78483) titled ‘The Digital Agenda for Europe — Driving European growth digitally’ (‘the Digital Agenda’), to bring basic broadband to all Europeans by 2013. Furthermore the digital agenda aims to ensure that, by 2020, all Europeans have access to much higher internet speeds of above 30 mbps and 50% or more of Union households subscribe to internet connections above 100 mbps.
Relevance for the logistic market:
The increasing proliferation of electronic business, especially regarding consumer preferences, has significant relevance for the logistic sector because it will impose enormous requirements in the fields of reliability, punctuality and expedition;
For the logistics sector, e-commerce (impacting parcel deliveries and return logistics), the tracking of freight and vehicles, and its management, as well as cloud-services (which allow the sharing of data to make synchromodal supply chains work) are likely to be of increasing importance for the future operation of logistics chains;
On the other hand, internet- and web-based services create challenges in the way the privacy of information and data is dealt with.
Environmental awareness
Description:
The adoption of an environment-friendly culture in economic activity includes transport activities and requires that economic actors (producer, intermediaries and consumer) consider factors like environmental effects of economic activity and the sustainable usage of scarce resources. Furthermore, the positive and sustainable contribution of economic activity to the environment in the organisation and provision of logistics services will also become more relevant and important in the future;
In this context, the general topic “green logistics”, describes a supply chain management practice and strategy that reduces the environmental and energy footprint of freight distribution. In addition to the abovementioned aspect, green logistics focusing on reducing the ecological impacts of material handling, waste management, packaging and transport are expected to become increasingly important. The following figures confirm this expectation: