About Us
What we do
Supply chain sustainability is now a business imperative fueled by the demands and requirements of consumers, governments, investors, and third parties. Investors and consumers are requiring increasingly robust social and environmental action from organizations.
To better understand and support these changes, MIT CTL researchers and faculty spanning a range of expertise areas have come together in this initiative to individually and collaboratively address the problem of understanding and influencing the social and environmental impacts of supply chain business processes.
This work serves as a platform for MIT CTL to engage with students, industry, and stakeholders on research, education, and engagement related to sustainable supply chains. We aspire to empower current and future generation of supply chain leaders to make a positive impact on people and planet while meeting their business needs. Educating future supply chain professionals is the key to enabling the future of sustainable supply chains.
The Challenges
Currently, transportation contributes roughly 28% of the United States’ total greenhouse gas (GHG) making it the largest source of GHG emissions in the country.
GHG emissions from the transportation sector may double by 2050 due to the rate of adoption of vehicles in developing countries.
Highly urbanized cities and increasing trends in Omni-channel operations increase CO2 emissions.
Online shopping is growing in the United States and represents 9.6% of the total retail trade in 2018.
The increase of logistics intensity due to e-commerce is pushing companies to offer faster and more frequent deliveries, which increases fuel consumption and CO2 emissions.


The Opportunities
While companies face many challenges in their logistics and supply chain operations, there are plenty of opportunities to reduce not only their environmental impact but also costs. Since many emissions reduction projects revolve around increasing fuel efficiency, sustainability positively impacts the bottom line as well.
Companies can incorporate sustainable logistics through different initiatives, such as:
- Optimize last-mile operations by selecting proper vehicles according to the characteristics of the routes.
- Study consumer behavior and the environmental impact of same-day delivery: Analyze the drivers that affect the customer’s willingness to wait for home delivery after providing environmental impact information.
- Design sustainable and cost-effective transportation modes: Help planners make choices that can be expressed not only in monetary terms but also in environmental benefits associated with the implementation of these modes.
- Identify what patterns or characteristics within different regions can explain the variability of CO2 emissions among them.
- Analyze how to improve routing decisions, what is the effect of topography in these decisions, and when solutions that consider topography affect the distance-min route.
- Analyze the relationship between CO2 emissions in transportation and driver behavioral patterns.
MIT Sustainable Research Team

Dr. Josué Velázquez Martínez
Director

Dr. Vytaute Dlugoborskyte
Postdoctoral Researcher

Camilo Mora-Quiñones
Project Manager
Research Collaborators in CTL

Prof. Yossi Sheffi
Director, Center for Transportation and Logistics

Dr. Eva Ponce
Director, Omnichannel Distribution Strategy Lab

Dr. David Corrrell
Co-Director, Freight Lab

Dr. Matthias Winkenbach
Director, Megacity Logistics & CAVE Labs
International Research Collaborators

Prof. Joachim Arts
Professor, Luxembourg Centre for Logistics and Supply Chain Management

Prof. Claudio Barbieri Da Cunha
Professor, Transportation Engineering, University of São Paulo

Prof. Pilar Arroyo
Professor, Engineering School and EGADE Business School at Tec de Monterrey

Prof. Tarkan Tan
Associate Professor, School of Industrial Engineering at Eindhoven University of Technology

Prof. Jan C. Fransso
Professor of Operations and Logistics Management, Tilburg University

Prof. Martín Tanco
Dean Faculty of Engineering, University of Montevideo

Prof. Hugo Yoshizaki
Professor, Transportation Engineering, University of São Paulo

Dr. Melvin Drent
Assistant Professor, Supply Chain Management, Eindhoven University of Technology
Visiting Students & Alumni

Sayda Benitez
Tec de Monterrey, February - December 2019

Mojdeh Azad
PhD Candidate University of Tennessee, September - December 2019

Agustin Perez
Tec de Monterrey, Summer 2019

Denis Davydov
EPFL, 2017

Aniruddha Suhas Deshpande
TPP – 2021

Ars-Vita Alamsyah
SCM - 2021

Hea Akau
MIT Sloan 2022

Jacob Backstrom
SCM – 2021

Jason Pang
SCM – 2021

Kelly Sorel
SCM – 2021

Namuun Purevdorj
SCM – 2021

Niranjini Kumarja
SCM – 2021

Ashley Barrington
SCM – 2020

Elizabeth Raman
SCM – 2020

Abdelrahman Hefny
SCM – 2020

Saikat Banerjee
SCM – 2020

Catherine Dame
SCM – 2020

Laura Allegue
SCM – 2020

Carson G Collard
SCM – 2020

Gabriela Rubio Domingo
SCM – 2020

Sadia Shathi
SCM – 2020