Wooden Pallets Can Play a Crucial Role in a Sustainable Supply Chain Today

Pallet companies can play a vital role in the sustainability of the supply chain. Kamps has placed an emphasis on reducing its environmental footprint, while aligning with its customers’ sustainability goals and offering solutions that provide positive environmental value to their supply chains.

Q: How important is sustainability in today’s pallet market?

A: Sustainability is extremely important because of the vital role pallets play in the supply chain and the volume at which they are generated. At any point in time, there are millions of pallets in circulation—supporting supply chain logistics around the world. Pallet companies have the responsibility to offer a sustainable solution to these supply chains. By offering a sustainable solution, pallets can minimize or offset the negative impacts of an organization’s supply chain.

Q: How does Kamps’ emphasis on sustainability influence your products and services?

A: With a 95% recycling rate, the ability to repair and reuse, and the positive impacts on healthy forests, wooden pallets are inherently sustainable. Our strategy at Kamps is to maximize these positive impacts through operational excellence, while placing an emphasis on accurate reporting for the sake of our customers.

Q: What has the impact of your sustainability strategy been?

A: We have seen a positive impact both internally and externally. Internally, our team is more conscious of our environmental footprint. We are now actively looking at different methods of reducing that footprint.

For example, in 2021, we lowered the average trip time of our fleet by 15%. This was important to us as our Comprehensive Environmental Sustainability Report revealed the majority of our carbon emissions came from our mobile combustion—our fleet. While some of these methods do have a positive impact on different areas of our business, we are still extremely pleased to see our team trend in a positive direction in regards to sustainability.

Externally, we are now more aligned than ever with our customers’ sustainability goals and can offer solutions that provide positive environmental value to their supply chains. Our tagline “Your Platform for Customer Service” truly encompasses all aspects of our customers’ needs—including sustainability.

Q: What upcoming sustainability efforts are you excited about?

A: We are continuously working to increase the positive impact Kamps has both internally and externally. Internally, we are always looking at various initiatives we can implement to lower our environmental footprint. This is important because as we continue growing as an organization, we want to ensure we are doing so in the most sustainable method possible—while still being able to provide the quality of service our customers expect to keep their supply chains optimized.

Externally, by lowering the footprint of our operations, we can extend more environmentally positive solutions to our customers.

We also want to continue to provide the most accurate environmental data and reporting for our customers. Our goal is to do so by investing time and resources in ensuring our data is backed by the latest research and data possible. The landscape of environmental accounting and reporting is continuously shifting and our customers have a wide range of stakeholders that greatly value environmental sustainability. Since 1973, Kamps has been the most trusted pallet organization in regards to service and ethics—and our goal is to carry the same symbol in regards to environmental sustainability.