Logistics Podcast: Das Gleiche in Grün?! Season 2

In the finale of the second season, we take you to the retail trade. Timo and Moritz have arranged to meet Florian Cebulla, Head of Corporate Responsibility Circular Systems at the Schwarz Group, in front of the virtual shelf. Most people probably know the Schwarz Group primarily through the retailers Lidl and Kaufland. However, business units for manufacturing and disposal/recycling are also part of the group. So, full circle? Today's episode is about the following questions, among others:

• What issues surrounding closed-loop systems are currently driving Florian and the retail industry as a whole?
• Where does Florian see the limits for circular efforts today? Is a company's high level of vertical integration the most important success factor for circular systems?
• What's actually behind the circular bottle (you know: the one from the campaign with Günther Jauch)?
• What role does retail play in curbing food waste?

Just about everyone knows this. Ordered online, goods received and then off into the garbage can with the shipping boxes and packaging. 4.5 billion shipments per year in Germany result in around 50 kg of waste per second. And for 2026, the German Parcel and Express Logistics Association (BIEK) forecasts around 5.7 billion shipments. So what to do?

Moritz and Timo talked to Dominik Moers from Hey Circle, a young start-up from Munich that offers reusable shipping packaging. Admittedly, this is not an entirely new topic. In the age of the European Green Deal, the Circular Economy and packaging laws, the time seems ripe for reusable systems, especially for online retail.

The issues at stake are as follows:

• According to Hey Circle (deposit system), how should customer acceptance be achieved so that shipping boxes and bags are actually returned?
• When does the benefit arise in terms of CO2 emissions compared to the conventional shipping box? How often do the boxes have to circulate?
• For which articles / industries are such reusable systems already interesting today? And which developments is Hey Circle aiming at?
• Who is Hey Circle's customer today? And who can become it in the future?
• What is the circulation model between Hey Circle and its customers (repair, exchange, etc.)?

Battery electric, fuel cell, eFuel, HVO, hydrogen - you don't really know what you're talking about? As a podcast with a teaching mission, we offer help! In today's episode, Timo and Moritz talk to Urs Maier and Ulf Neuling from Agora Verkehrswende - an independent think tank based in Berlin - about the decarbonization of freight transport. Among other things, it's about the following questions:

• How do we decarbonize the more than 3 million existing trucks of various sizes?
• What is the potential of bio-based fuels?
• Where are the regulatory bottlenecks in the decarbonization of freight transport?
• How important is technology openness? And how is it different from technology neutrality?
• What does an effective charging infrastructure for trucks look like?
• What are the prospects for decarbonizing international air and sea transport?

Hydrogen - is the colorless gas a real alternative for truck transport? Timo and Moritz discuss this question with André Steinau from GP Joule. This company doesn’t mean anything to you? Then you should listen in. The slogan "We do the whole energy transition" is true: André explains the H2 value chain from start to finish. In the new episode of "The same in green?!" the following questions, among others, are addressed:

• How is hydrogen produced and why do people so often talk about colors, despite H2 being colorless?
• What role can hydrogen play as a buffer in the national energy mix?
• Why does hydrogen fit in with truck traffic? And where are the limits?
• What does GP Joule offer logistics companies?

All beginnings are difficult - does this also apply to the topic of sustainability? Timo and Moritz invited an expert on this topic: Andrea Goeman is an authority in the context of more sustainable logistics, but is now starting from scratch at JAS Worldwide and building up a new division as SVP Sustainability. In the new episode of "The same in green?!", the following questions, among others, are addressed:

• Where do you start? Which legal frameworks play a role for global LDL?
• How do you permanently implement sustainability aspects in a large and diverse organization?
• How do you move from strategic goals to measurable results?
• What are Andrea's TOP tips for new sustainability leaders?
• And how would Andrea invest ten million euros for more sustainable logistics?

Sustainability managers in logistics (but also beyond) often spend a lot of time tapping into hard-to-access data lakes and consolidating their content in Excel spreadsheets. In issue #15 of "The same in green?!" (Das Gleiche in Grün), Yvonne Bonventre from BLG and Yvonne Bonventre from BLG and Tobias Bohnhoff from shipzero tell us how this can be done differently. With the shipzero solution, BLG collects and utilizes all CO2-relevant data – even sub-service providers are integrated via shipzero as a "trusted third party". Timo and Moritz also discussed other exciting questions with Yvonne and Tobias:

• How costly is the collection and processing of CO2-relevant data really?
• What is primary data and why is it preferable?
• What does BLG use the reports from shipzero for?
• How does the collaboration between startup and big companies or groups work?
• Why do so many sustainability managers in logistics not come from logistics?
• How would Yvonne, Tobias and Timo invest 10 million euros for more sustainable logistics?

For weeks now, we've heard a lot about e-fuels - whether we wanted to or not. Today on "Das Gleich in Grün?!” we're talking about a "b-fuel": Hydrotreated Vegetable Oil (HVO). Timo and Moritz are interested: what is it, where can you fill up with it, and does HVO really help curb climate change? We talked about this and other topics with Moritz Toelke of Sovereign Speed, who, after a stint at the climate NGO Smart Freight Centre, is now responsible for the sustainability of a logistics service provider himself. Spoiler: unlike the hotly debated e-fuels, HVO is already available today in larger quantities - although not yet (!) in Germany.

• How do you build the sustainability strategy of a logistics service provider?
• What adjustments can be made in the short term to reduce emissions?
• What is HVO and how does Sovereign Speed use HVO?
• How hard is the landing in operational reality after working for an NGO?
• What do we need to finally get the horsepower on the road in decarbonization: Technological solutions, incentives, bans? All at the same time?

Sounds interesting? It is. So tune in quickly!

Today we have a packed show. And on several meta levels. On the one hand, “Das Gleiche in Grün” is about packaging. And on the other hand, Moritz and Timo have invited two experts. Michael von Kaptura and Peter von Packsize have visited the two investigative Wallraffs of the podcast scene in the virtual studio to talk about avoiding air in the context of packaging. To do so, they dive into the depths of intralogistics, taking on the challenges of the last mile right along with them.

• What does customized and sustainable packaging look like?
• How important is master data?
• How much CO2 can be reduced by avoiding air and packaging materials?
• And what impact does this have on the load?

Today we dare to look beyond the national horizon, because decarbonization of freight transport is a global challenge. For this endeavor, Timo and Moritz have invited Friedel Sehlleier. For GIZ (Gesellschaft für internationale Zusammenarbeit), Friedel implements freight transport projects in Thailand or India, for example. And there, the focus is sometimes on completely different topics than here in Germany: Battery Swapping for Trucks or Trucking as a Service are just two keywords.

• What do you do as a project manager at GIZ? • What exactly is GIZ and how do international decarbonization projects work?
• How do we deal with the high growth rates in freight transport volumes that are forecast internationally?
• What levers for decarbonization exist and how effective are they?
• Who is actually responsible for improving freight transport in GIZ's target countries? Hit play and enjoy!

with Helen Tacke from cozero They are back! The two tie bears* have crawled out of their winter cave. Rested, rested, but no less investigative, the dynamic duo is still on their mission to merge sustainability and logistics. Season 2 will again offer everything that made season 1 so special. Only just hollywood-technically more emotional, funnier, more enlightening, simply bigger. In the first episode, Timo and Moritz met with Helen Tacke from cozero in her virtual studio, a young start-up from Berlin, which sees itself as a software company and is committed to supporting the corporate sector in the transition to a lower-emission economy.

• What are the challenges in determining carbon footprints?
• What is a ROCI? And why is it needed?
• Why is transparency so important and at the same time so difficult to achieve?
• How do you deal with white spots on the emissions map?
• And how does the cozero magic module work? And why is it actually called something else? Instructions: Go to the "Play" button with the mouse and press the left mouse button. Sit back, relax and listen to the episode.

*Tie-dye bear (ursus sonekrawatte) is a lovable predatory species from the bear family that would like to see a little more sustainability in logistics.

Finaaaaalee! Finale? Yes, season finale of "DGIG?!". Fitting, isn’t it? After all, Germany is the world champion... isn't it? At least in the area of returns, the numbers speak for themselves: every fourth online order is completely or partially returned. That's about 40 items every second! Wow. Circular economy, but completely misunderstood. And what actually happens to the returns? Timo and Moritz talk about this with Petra Olah and Alexander Lange from BuyBay. And they also reveal, what happens next with DGIG?!

• Why are packages going back and what does that mean for e-commerce companies?
• Why is the volume of returns in Germany so high?
• How do you process returned goods and how do you resell them?
• Why is Amazon only suitable for flawless products, while anything goes on eBay?
• And: What's next for DGIG?

ETS, IMO and CII... What sounds like the beginning of a rap song from the 90s is now setting the tone for more sustainability in international shipping. Timo and Moritz talk today with Friederike Hesse, Co-Founder and Managing Director of zero44, about how exactly and what the abbreviations actually mean.

• What exactly does zero44 do and why did Friederike choose the shipping industry to start a business?
• What does the shipping market actually look like and which participants are there?
• What are CII and ETS and how do these regulations affect the value of ships?
• How do you establish transparency on emissions? And what impact will this factor have on operations in the future?

How can one manage the sustainability activities of a logistics service provider that offers almost everything from last-mile delivery to bulk logistics? And as a sustainability expert, isn't one working towards the abolition of one's own job? Timo and Moritz discuss these and many other exciting topics with Isa Kohn, Head of Sustainability at Rhenus, in the new episode of this podcast series.

• How do you set up a management unit for sustainability? And how do you take the very different business units along with you?
• How do you determine which areas to invest in first?
• Where does the transformation work well? Where is sustainability more difficult to address?
• How do you stay on top of a broad and dynamic issue like sustainability?
• When will truly sustainable business become the new business-as-usual?

In the event of a disaster, fast help is needed - well-prepared humanitarian logistics is key. But things don't always work out smoothly. Jonas Stumpf and his team from HELP Logistics train international aid organizations such as the World Food Program or the UN Refugee Agency so that they can provide aid more efficiently... and also more sustainably! Because sustainability is also rapidly gaining importance in humanitarian logistics.

• What exactly is humanitarian logistics? What does a crisis operation look like in practice?
• How does climate change affect the humanitarian sector?
• What are the levers to reduce the sector's footprint without compromising its performance?
• Is local sourcing a viable option for humanitarian organizations?
• And why can every euro spent before disaster save seven euros when disaster strikes? Timo and Moritz say, "An episode with a special angle on the relevance of logistics. 100/100 points." Well, tune in quickly!

The human being in the context of the family. What is true in one's own four walls is also mostly true in the classic family businesses of the republic. Value-driven visions and missions that (mostly) go beyond the exclusively monetary. Timo and Andreas talked to Mark from Zufall Logistik about his own personal development, in particular how becoming and being a father has changed his view of the world. And moreover, what such values and, accordingly, sustainability have meant, mean and will mean for a family business. A short exciting outline from the center of the logistics middle class in family hands.

• How can a family business act sustainably?
• How can visions be designed to connect with people?
• How does the recruitment process change?
• Are you looking for specialists or do you want to be found?
• Is it okay to choose customers?

Just press play, sit back, listen and be inspired.

More information:

• LinkedIn-Profil and Webprofil Prof. Moritz Petersen
• LinkedIn-Profil Timo Landener
• Irgendwas mit Logistik