The transport sector is responsible for approximately 25% of the European Union’s CO2 emissions, with over 70% of these emissions attributable to road transport. It is also estimated that about 23% of transport emissions occur in cities. In urban areas, with the rise of e-commerce, last-mile logistics is taking on an increasingly significant role, necessitating economic and environmental management of this phenomenon, especially in the context of city decarbonization and improving the quality of life for residents.
In this context, the study aims to analyze and compare various technological options for home grocery delivery services from a life-cycle perspective. It evaluates performance both in terms of traditional impact categories and through indicators integrated into the Life Cycle Assessment methodology, providing a broader view of the benefits and impacts of different choices. On one hand, it assesses the external costs of the technological options, considering damage due to pollutant emissions, greenhouse effects, noise, congestion, and accidents. On the other hand, it provides an estimate of the irreducible costs of the compared technologies using the Commodity Life Cycle Cost (CLCC) indicator, which evaluates the cost of raw materials involved in the life cycle of vehicles in terms of both the cost of raw materials and their scarcity.
For logistics, real data on consumption and emissions from specific experiments were used to build the LCA model of the vehicles. Additionally, primary data were utilized for the characterization of the production phase of cargo bikes and NMC (Nickel-Manganese-Cobalt) batteries.
The analysis showed that, for last-mile logistics services, the cargo bike is the best option in all analyzed aspects, followed by the electric van. The diesel van, however, is the worst option in all cases.
From a decarbonization perspective, replacing a diesel van with an electric van or a cargo bike would result in reductions of climate-altering emissions by 173 g CO2/km and 250 g CO2/km, respectively. Similarly, the savings in external costs would be 21 €/1000 km and 72 €/1000 km, respectively, for these options. Additionally, the savings from reduced raw material costs over the life cycle would be 25 €/1000 km and 41 €/1000 km, respectively. These results could provide useful support for decision-makers evaluating scenarios for the adoption of electric vehicles within city fleets. The study also assessed various options for private car transport, confirming that electric vehicles are the best choice for decarbonization, leading to a reduction in climate-altering emissions of about 173 g CO2/km compared to a gasoline equivalent. For resource consumption, the electric car is still not competitive with others, but considering overall performance in terms of strictly environmental external costs, it proves to be the best choice, offering a benefit of approximately 29 €/1000 km.