Scanlog is a Swedish-owned logistics company with a focus on international freight moving to and from Scandinavia. With roughly 50 employees spread across five offices in Sweden and Norway, the company has a goal to set up shop in every country in Scandinavia.
The team at Scanlog is bound by the philosophy of “responsible logistics,” which steers them to make ethical decisions for their customers and the greater world. We sat down with Scanlog’s Business Development Manager Jens Nordin, Head of Digital Transformation & IT Benjamin Rävås, and Chief Sustainability & Communications Officer Matilda Jarbin to talk about their company mission, how they’ve carved a space for sustainability in the market, and their experience leveraging logistics tech to reach their goals.
Let’s start off by talking about the idea of “responsible logistics.” What exactly does that mean at Scanlog?
Responsible logistics is our motto and permeates everything we do. We summarize responsible logistics into three main parts. First, we’re committed to prioritizing high quality. There’s also cost efficiency, which means keeping costs down for ourselves and our customers. Then, we have reduced environmental impact. For example, if our clients want a couple hundred truckloads from Europe to Sweden, we suggest taking them by train instead because that has a much lower impact. We try to show them how this is better, even if the transit time is a bit longer.
Speaking of transparency, I’d love to hear more about how Logixboard plays into this philosophy. Can you share a little bit about our partnership and how we were first introduced?
Initially, we met another logistics visibility solution at a Startup Grind convention, and I think we started talking to them about implementing some sort of customer dashboard that could integrate with CargoWise.
We’d been waiting for that, trying to modernize the look of what our customer sees because the way we want to present ourselves doesn’t match with that old sort of design and lack of features. More than that, they had to call us and email us all the time. If they can get that information in their own time and get answers instantly, that saves everybody a lot of time.
So then we looked around, and we were introduced to Juan and Julian. We started talking, and it was a good fit. You guys were very open about our ideas, and you helped us implement some things on your platform that we wanted. And so we helped each other back and forth.
How did you decide that this solution fit into your company goals and commitment to responsible logistics?
As a company, we want to be perceived as loving, or lovable. And to do that digitally, you need to be accessible and open. We don’t really mask any of our data. If something is delayed, we want to show that to our customers.
I think it was an early update that we wanted from Logixboard – we asked about having the visibility of how many days something has been delayed. When we first started, you didn’t have that feature. And then when you added that on, that’s when it clicked. Since we always want to have that open communication, that was the big deal, that Logixboard is built on being transparent on the data that we have.
Now, let’s go back to the other two components of responsible logistics. A lot of companies pursuing “green” initiatives see additional costs as a barrier. How do you balance cost with sustainability?
We manage to find imbalances in the market. For example, there might be different customers, and they don’t talk to each other. One has a lot of things going from A to B, and the other is moving things from B to A. So instead of sending empty containers back and forth, we’ll say, “Hey, we can use that.” That way, we can get a really competitive price, and also a lower impact on the environment.
We’ll try to have those conversations with customers early on. We also discuss the bigger picture. The environmental impact has its own costs on the country and on our planet, so that’s something we try to get them to take into consideration.
What about when you can’t find those opportunities? Do you still try to provide sustainable choices for your customers?
Yes, we always present a more sustainable solution. Today, we have fossil-free solutions for all transport modes. So it’s really up to the client if they want to pay for it.
For example, for air freight, we provide sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), so you can move fossil-free air freight with us but at a higher cost. But what we have done since 2019 is provide offsets for all the emissions from air freight at no additional cost for our clients. Since we provide the offsets, it doesn’t affect the price for our clients, and it’s better to go with us than one of our competitors.
Let’s dive a bit deeper into offsets. Do you work with a partner to do that? And how do you decide what projects to invest in?
We’ve partnered with South Pole, a provider that’s leading the market in emission reduction projects. Currently, we’re working with them to fund renewable energy projects in developing countries.
You’ve talked about some of the additional costs you take on in your sustainable efforts. What does ROI look like from these initiatives?
We’ve had clients start contacting us because they’ve heard about our practices. There’s some business you couldn’t get without doing what we’re doing. That makes the investment pay for itself. Because we have this angle on the market where most other companies don’t, we can get new business just by having that. And no one else really does it.
It’s getting more and more important, especially in Europe, to have a focus on sustainability. Especially for business to consumer (B2C), which are our customers most of the time. So since they have high pressure to be sustainable, if we can sell them a sustainable product, we are the ones that they want to partner with.
We’ve covered a lot of exciting work that you’re doing right now. What’s next for Scanlog?
Since last year, we’ve been following a business plan that is completely based on our sustainability strategy. That has made a big difference in our operations.
But we still have a lot of things going on that aren’t done yet. In the coming years, we’ll focus on continuing to reduce our emissions. For example, we have new fossil-free solutions, but now we need to get more of our clients to use them. Another next step is to introduce a CO2 solution to our customer base. We believe this is all necessary to combat climate change at a quicker pace.
Reach out to Logixboard today to learn about our built-in CO2 emissions reporting.
