ABSTRACT
Some 10 years ago, the head of the logistics department of one of the largest multinational companies in Europe was scheduled to deliver the final presentation at a transport research conference. Much to the surprise of his audience, he deviated from the title in the programme and instead delivered a very critical speech directed at the profession of logistics, which he accused of naivety in handling sustainability issues. The main thrust of his message was captured in the following sentence: ‘We must stop cross trading bottled drinking water across the oceans!’.
