A Big Step for a Climate-Friendly Future for North Rhine-Westphalia, One Final Step for the ILoNa Project The logistics sector has enormous potential for incorporating practices that take into consideration the social and ecological aspects of all steps along the way. Over the course of three years, our ILoNa Project looked at the interaction of customer behavior and logistics services and worked out the future challenges for the sector on its way to sustainability practices. At its final conference, the project was recognised by KlimaExpo.NRWas the 296th of 1,000 steps into a climate-friendly future in North Rhine Westphalia. The research project ILoNa, “Innovative Logistics for Sustainable Lifestyles” was committed to promoting sustainable logistics for business and society. In doing so, social aspects were considered on an equal footing with ecological and economic aspects to comprehensively uncover the sustainability potential in logistics. The project also investigated the interaction of customer behaviour and logistics services. In several consumer and company surveys, the project team not only examined the status quo, but also worked out the future challenges of the industry. One result: sustainability problems are in particular due to the high number of returns in online retail, in packaging and in transport routes. These challenges can be mitigated by changes in purchasing behaviour and customer demands. Many companies are working on generating solutions based on the use of new technologies and, in some cases, enabling new business models. At the final conference on 17 April 2018 at the University of Essen, the CSCP and its project partners looked back on three years of research and presented recommendations for action. During this final conference, ILoNa was also honoured by the State of North Rhine-Westphalia for its commitment to climate protection. “The project deals with decisive questions of an industry whose rethinking is of particular importance for climate protection. …. This is an important step – not only for climate protection – and therefore deserves a place in our exhibition,” said Dr. Heinrich Dornbusch, Managing Director of KlimaExpo.NRW, at the award presentation. As an initiative of the NRW state government, KlimaExpo.NRW will present positive examples of climate protection in and from North Rhine-Westphalia in 1,000 steps until 2022. The ILoNa project is the 296th step. For further information, please contact Rosa Strube.