# Logistics Space: A Literature Review from the Sustainability Perspective
## 4 Impact of Logistics Space: On Sustainability  
The purpose of logistics is to meet the needs of social production and residents' life. There are many participants in logistics system, including suppliers, manufacturers, distributors, and logistics service providers. Around logistics activities, procurement, transportation, warehousing, loading and unloading, handling, circulation processing, packaging and information are important functions. The freight transport is an important field for local sustainability strategies, since it causes severe environmental, social and economic problems in towns and regions, such as air pollution, noise emissions, infrastructure and land use demand [65]. According to the survey data, China's energy consumption of tertiary industry accounts for approximately 30% of the total energy consumption. As the main forms of the logistics industry, transportation, warehousing, and postal service account for more than 80% of energy consumption of tertiary industry [36]. Sustainability in a broader sense is a framework that stipulates that available resources of today directly and profoundly affect those of tomorrow [66]. It has attracted researchers as well as practitioners to study various aspects of sustainability. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c} \hline \hline \multicolumn{1}{c}{**Method**} & **Object** & **Advantage** & **Limitation** \\ \hline \multirow{4}{*}{Geography} & \multirow{2}{*}{Average distance} & Activities distributed around a single center & Quantitative calculation of the diffusion of logistics distance & Logistics activities around the center are not evenly distributed \\ \cline{3-5}  & & Finding the weighted geometric center, or barycenter, of a geographic distribution & Helping identify, quantify spread patterns and cartographic representations & — \\ \cline{2-5}  & \multirow{2}{*}{Standard deviation ellipse} & Analyzing the direction and distribution of logistics nodes & Presenting the degree of diffusion and distribution of logistics space & — \\ \cline{2-5}  & & Spatial distribution density of logistics node & Visual representation of distribution patterns & Requesting point data \\ \hline \multirow{4}{*}{Management} & \multirow{2}{*}{Gini coefficient} & Measuring the concentration of industrial space & — & Little spatial meaning \\ \cline{2-5}  & & Measuring the relative concentration and specialization of industries & Ease of computation and limited data requirements & The impact of external economies of scale is uncertain \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 5: Research method of logistics space. Combing the existing literature, we can see that most of them analyze sustainability from the perspective of logistics activities and supply chain. Logistics activities are intermediate inputs, so that the demand for logistics services derives from the demand for final goods or services [11]. The output of logistics activities has a certain impact on the environment, economy and society. According to [PERSON] et al., logistics activities service is divided into four categories: transport, warehousing, logistics service and management [67]. Each service can achieve green goals and sustainable development through technological or policy means. Due to globalization, challenging market, demand uncertainty, and economic competitiveness, business organizations are under serious threat to sustain their existing supply chain. Researchers have attempted to extend the boundary of sustainable development into the area of supply chain management (SCM), to investigate sustainable supply chain management. [PERSON] et al. propose that the design and incorporation of reverse logistics into SCM will allow the family company to close the cycle of resources, improving its environmental sustainability [68]. [PERSON] et al. propose a hierarchical structure of sustainable supply chain management and develops a multi-item measurement scale to reflect the specific management practices of sustainable supply chain management [69].