Less emissions or less freight? Conflicting narratives for sustainable logistics in Norway

Logistics is a vital yet energy-intensive sector and policies for sustainable logistics require cooperation between public authorities and businesses. However, public authorities and businesses may have different perceptions of what sustainable logistics entails. Research on logistics has typically either addressed strategies in private firms or investigated public sector plans and goals. This paper examines how ‘sustainable logistics’ is operationalised differently between public and business narratives based on three ‘grand narratives’: decarbonisation , collective logistics and low-mobility society . Data collection is based on document analysis of 18 public and business strategies for logistics in Norway, 42 semi-structured interviews and a survey with 88 respondents, all centred on the major urban areas in Norway (Oslo, Bergen, Trondheim and Stavanger). It finds that there is a discrepancy between public and business narratives for sustainable logistics, where public authorities promote all three narratives, with an emphasis on low-mobility society , whereas firms mainly target decarbonisation . This can help explain why collaboration between the public and business sectors has mainly addressed emissions and congestion as opposed to traffic reductions. A combination of the grand narratives is necessary to achieve an overall sustainable transport sector, but public authorities do not give logistics as much attention as passenger transport, reinforcing the business focus on decarbonisation .