How AI and Consolidated Shipping Are Transforming Logistics Sustainability

In this episode of The Sustainable Supply Chain Podcast, I sit down with Thom Campbell, Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Capacity LLC, a leading third-party logistics and fulfilment company. Thom shares fascinating insights from his 25 years in the industry, where sustainability has evolved from an afterthought to a core priority.

We discuss how Capacity has woven sustainability into its operations, from banning styrofoam peanuts over two decades ago to installing solar panels across their warehouses. Thom dives into consolidated shipping—a practice that not only cuts emissions but also optimises costs for retailers and brands alike.

The conversation also explores the practicalities of energy-efficient facilities, including achieving LEED and ENERGY STAR certifications, and the role of AI and robotics in logistics. Thom outlines how AI has transformed their processes, from improving order batching to speeding up robotic learning curves, with significant implications for sustainability.

We also address the regulatory landscape, including California’s WARE programme, and how businesses can adapt without breaking the bank. Thom candidly shares the challenges of aligning with client sustainability goals, particularly for influencer-driven brands where packaging and presentation are under constant scrutiny.

Finally, Thom offers his take on the ongoing debate between e-commerce and traditional retail, as well as the clutter businesses must eliminate to achieve “sustainability joy.”

Whether you’re in logistics, sustainability, or simply curious about the intersection of the two, this episode is packed with actionable insights and thought-provoking discussions.

Tune in to learn more about how supply chains can become not just efficient, but truly sustainable.

 If disruption hit tomorrow, would you know where your supply chain was most exposed? In 15 minutes my free scorecard helps you assess 27 resilience statements, calculate your score, and turn the result into three priorities and a 30 day action plan. You can download the scorecard free at tomraftery.com/scorecard.

Transcript

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Thom Campbell: 0:03

In California, for example, we have regulations that we have to comply with, and reporting requirements, and fees associated with the number of trucks that go in and out of our facilities. And I think that is just the beginning of what you've indicated in your body of work. It's going to be the reality we all live through. This is going to be an increasingly fiduciary responsibility that companies have to regulatory bodies, to their shareholders, to their boards. And it's been an interesting time.

Tom Raftery: 0:32

Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, wherever you are in the world. This is the Sustainable Supply Chain Podcast, the number one podcast focusing on sustainability and supply chains, and I'm your host, Tom Raftery. Hi everyone and welcome to episode 43 of the Sustainable Supply Chain podcast. I'm Tom Raftery and I'm excited to share the latest in sustainable supply chains with you. A big thanks to this podcast's amazing supporters. You're the reason I'm here each week and I really appreciate each and every one of you. If you'd like to join this community and help keep the podcast going, it's easy. Support starts at just a few euros or dollars a month. It's less than the cost of a cup of coffee. And you can find the support link in the show notes of this or any episode or visit tinyurl. com slash SSC pod. Today, I'm delighted to be speaking to Thom Campbell from Capacity LLC, and in the weeks that are coming, I'll be speaking to Kenny McGee, CEO of ComponentSense, John Guryup, CEO of VCG. ai, Aaron Loeber, a VP from CADDi, and Kayla Broussard, who is CTO of Kendryl. So back to today's show, as I mentioned, I'm talking to Thom. Another Thom. Thom, welcome to the podcast. Would you like to introduce yourself?

Thom Campbell: 1:51

Thanks, Tom. And yes, the first names will be easy today. I'm Tom Campbell. I'm one of the co founders of Capacity, a 25 year old third party logistics and fulfillment company headquartered in New Jersey. And I'm the chief strategy officer. And since inception, I've done most jobs ranging from Leading sales, marketing, customer service, strategy, contracts, chief bottle washer, the whole gamut. And thanks very much for having me today. I really appreciate the opportunity.

Tom Raftery: 2:23

Sure. No, not at all. And can you give us, for people who are unaware, a little bit of an idea of Capacity, you know, public company, private company, number of employees, markets addressed, all those kinds of things.

Thom Campbell: 2:35

Yes, thanks. So we are a mid sized third party company. And what that means is we work for brands that range from emerging to often the point of a transaction, they're being acquired by a fortune 100 company or sometimes going public. And so we follow them along that journey from um, really sometimes inception to either a transaction and even beyond. So sometimes our clients get bought by major CPGs and we continue to work with them for years to come, which is a lot of fun. We love to see the lifespan of a successful brand. And we tend to work with brands. So these are mostly consumer products brands. They can be health and beauty and wellness, color cosmetics and fragrance and electronics. And blue jeans and socks, pretty much anything that's smaller than your head. That is a consumer product that has more value than say a baseball cap. Although I'm sure they're very expensive baseball caps out there these days. Mostly these are items that are 20, 40, 60 dollars and up and the shipping direct to consumers and also direct to retailers, both specialty and major retailers.

Tom Raftery: 3:41

Superb. And are you seeing, well, this is the Sustainable Supply Chain podcast. So obviously we're going to be talking about sustainability. So from your perspective, what are the most significant changes you've seen in the industry regarding sustainability?

Thom Campbell: 3:58

Well, it's really been the most interesting time to live through sustainability changes in a way, because when we started one of our first precepts was we wouldn't use styrofoam peanuts because we found them to be evil and we thought that they were environmentally unfriendly and we had the option because we essentially setting the rules for how we would provide services and we felt there were good alternatives. So this is more than two decades ago. We took a decision not to offer that particular method for protecting often glass items. And as time went by, obviously we modified our way of providing protective packaging, but we also did things like put solar on our warehouse roof is when it was incentivized by the government. We offered carpooling to our employees, but even more impactfully, we've seen projects like consolidation of shipments for retailers, which are probably the things that moved the needle the most in terms of cutting back on diesel consumption. And it's gone from being a very ad-hoc kind of sustainability environment to increasingly regulation driven. So in California, for example, we have regulations that we have to comply with and reporting requirements and fees associated with the number of trucks that go in and out of our facilities. And I think that is just the beginning of what you've indicated in your body of work. It's going to be the reality we all live through. This is going to be an increasingly fiduciary responsibility that companies have to regulatory bodies, to their shareholders, to their boards. And it's been an interesting time.

Tom Raftery: 5:36

And you mentioned consolidated shipping there and its environmental impact. Can you explain how it works, how it contributes to reducing emissions and operational costs? And what are some challenges companies might face when implementing consolidated shipping practices?

Thom Campbell: 5:51

so as a midsize provider, my clients are, start up, to midsize, to enterprise size brands. And a healthy line of trade with a retailer might involve shipping a couple, of few pallets those wooden four foot by four foot sort of shipping units to a retailer. For you know, example of a beauty company shipping to Sephora. And what we've done in our collaborations with Sephora and with Ulta and with Target and Macy's is we have a set rhythm by which those shipments are routed in the case of somebody with a lot of frequency like Sephora every other day. And every other day they pick up a mix of purchase orders across a number of different brands. What does that mean? That means when the truck gets here, it's not just picking up one, two, three, six pallets. It's picking up a full dozen or two pallets, and it's able to consolidate those shipments. So they get efficiency. Usually their carrier is a third party also, but those carriers are limiting the number of trips they make, the total number of miles that they drive, and therefore the gallons of diesel that they consume.

Tom Raftery: 7:02

Okay. And if I were another 3PL interested in doing consolidated shipping, what kind of challenges would that present for me?

Thom Campbell: 7:11

So the first challenge you have to meet is you have to have enough volume for the retailer to actually consolidate shipments and gain some measure of efficiency by working with you to create density of those shipments. The second you need is a routing department that can actually affect the consolidation of the purchase orders across multiple brands. A consideration is whether or not you're within what's called the commercial zone. There are concentric circles around major urban centers like New York city, Los Angeles and consolidators, the truckers who perform this consolidation activity will operate within those consolidation zones. And those commercial zones allow brands generally to sell their product freight collect. The retailer pays for the freight and the brand gets a benefit in that they're not paying for shipping of smaller shipments into the retailer. The retailer gets some consideration from the brand in terms of the buyer's agreement and the price that they're paying for the product, but it is generally a more virtuous agreement for both parties. So I think those would be the main considerations. I think the other thing is you have to know that these retailers are ready and willing to partner with third parties. Strictly speaking, most of these retailers are not in privity with Capacity. They're not our partner, but they are willing to partner with us. And even though we've done some work directly with Sephora and even Ulta, for the most part, we're simply reaching out to their transportation departments and we're coordinating these activities and growing these partnerships over time. So I think you have to see the benefit and the long term upside. One of the main upsides for the brands is that if you have a consolidated shipping program with a retailer, When month end comes around and quarter end comes around and everybody's trying to make their numbers,

Tom Raftery: 8:59

Hmm.

Thom Campbell: 8:59

who's the truck going to go pick up from? The place where they can get one pallet or the place where they can get 26 pallets? They're going to go and make the pickup from the consolidated provider of services because they can get the density of load and that's how they get paid. So, you have to see it from everybody's side. The retailer, the trucker, the brand, and the third party logistics company like Capacity. And then you have to bring it all together. And it takes some time and some attention, and some expertise, but it's definitely doable.

Tom Raftery: 9:29

Interesting. And in terms of energy efficiency, I read that your facilities meet LEED and ENERGY STAR certifications. How does that help the environment and business operations in the logistics sector, for example, Any advice you could give companies looking to improve the energy efficiency in their own facilities?

Thom Campbell: 9:51

Well, I think we had a great opportunity back in the 2019 2020 range when we knew we wanted to have a new headquarters. And we actually had a landlord we'd worked with over many years. And he was willing to build on spec. And so when they built the building LEED certification was important to us. Energy efficiency was important to us. We already had solar across most of our New Jersey campus. Again, we usually time those initiatives with two things. One, you need a new roof. So landlord has to be willing to put a new roof on your building. And then two, you often do it in conjunction with either state or federal incentives. And in the case of our new headquarters, we had the opportunity to design the building exactly the way we did. And so whether it's fairly simple stuff like motion sensor lights, or more complicated technology around the materials that are used for walls and roofs, We were able to work with the landlord and also the architect and the builder and do exactly what we wanted. We've been able to do some of that retroactively with our other buildings in New Jersey, Indianapolis and California. But those are considerably older structures. So many of them were built in the eighties. They've got new roofs, a bunch of them have solar and those efficiencies have happened over time. When, for example, you have to replace an HVAC unit and you use it more energy efficient model. And you can use more energy efficient ducting. So whether you're building from scratch, which is sort of the easiest way to approach the problem, or whether you're retrofitting an older facility, you have these opportunities. We're also fortunate in that generally we're operating in temperate climates. So while we're required by OSHA to heat our facilities in the winter and we don't want our people freezing. We don't generally see a need to temperature control the warehouse with a few exceptions, which we've done over the years for food items like chocolate doesn't like to get too hot but for the most part the products we have are stable below 80 degrees and our facilities stay that way. Even throughout the hottest months, and then we do heat them during the coldest months. So again, it's been something that I think was, it was something that happened organically and originally it was not front of mind, but when we built our most recent facility or had it built for us, it was an option. It actually wasn't significantly more expensive. And it seemed like the right thing to do at the time.

Tom Raftery: 12:45

And it's saving money.

Thom Campbell: 12:47

It is saving money. These are buildings that you rent for hundreds of thousand dollars a month. So it's not all of your costs are, are not insignificant. And even though your rent per square foot is a significant cost, your common area maintenance or your cost of operating and your cost of taxes is, is a material importance as well. And you have a, fair amount. you have safety considerations too. So you do spend a lot of money having facilities of this size even as a midsize provider. And so anything that you can do to save money. And one of the things that we had an intern actually, and he's working here full time do a couple of years ago was survey all of our utility costs. And he came up with a number of ways in which we were able to implement savings. It's tens of thousands of dollars a year. It's material.

Tom Raftery: 13:33

fantastic. And on the recycling front, I saw that you recycle over 500,000 kilos or a million pounds of materials each year. That's hugely impressive. How does large scale recycling influence waste reduction in supply chains? And again, what steps could other companies take to enhance their, recycling initiatives.

Thom Campbell: 13:55

That's a good question. And it used to be easier. So there was a time when we would bundle up corrugate. I remember when we bought our first baler, that was kind of exciting. It was machine that would bale and take the enormous amounts of corrugate that we produce, because obviously when, products come in and they ship out in the same case that they were manufactured in, that's easy. But a lot of what we do is high touch, pick and pack. What does that mean? That means that we touch individual units. We remove them from their original master case and or inner case, and then ship them in another box, protect it and present it to a consumer or to a retailer in accordance with the brand's requirements. And the all of that surplus corrugated is most of it can't be reused. Sometimes you can repurpose it and that's great. And we do that where it's possible, but for the most part, you have to recycle it. So for many years, we were able to bundle it up and sell it to the secondary market and it weren't making money hand over fist, but it would more than cover the cost of the baler, for example. And return on investment for those things was pretty short. The trade environment with China has changed. And so the market for those materials fluctuates. And sometimes you can get paid to tender your corrugated and shrink wrap and other materials that you're recycling. And sometimes you have to pay to take, take them away. But we have decided to do this as part of our standard process. And so whether we have to pay somebody to take away or whether we get a small amount of revenue from the activity, which subsidizes a little bit of the labor and material handling cost of recycling this is an industry that produces an enormous amount of corrugate waste, a fair amount of plastic waste, and a lot of diesel dollars and gas spent. So we do feel that it's incumbent upon us to do what we can to mitigate that.

Tom Raftery: 15:41

And in terms then of technology how are advancements in things like real time visibility, data analytics, AI, et cetera, contributing to more sustainable supply chain practices. And have you got any examples about integrating technology that you could share with us?

Thom Campbell: 15:57

That is a great question and one I don't have a facile answer for. I think we have always been very focused on technology. One of the founding principles of the company was that we were going to bring cutting edge technologies and material handling techniques to small and medium sized businesses. We've sort of evolved upstream as many companies do as they grow. But what that means at this point is that we are a Salesforce shop, which does all of its corporate customer care work through a CRM. We are a tableau shop from prior to Salesforce purchasing tableau, and that's where we create and do all of our business intelligence, and data modeling, and representation. And we are an AI and robotic shop because we work with our partner Covariant to perform certain tasks in the warehouse. And we've seen enormous benefits in using AI because when we first started using the robots, well, our first iterations of robot used before covariant were not successful. They were able to do the work, but they weren't able to hit the time hurdle rates that we thought represented a viable level of productivity. Covariant has been able to meet and beat those levels of productivity. And interestingly, when we first started working with them, it would take the robots a day or two to learn how to handle a specific Brands product, the box size, the bar codes, reading the text, sometimes even interpreting the colors to identify which product it was and put it in the right place. Now it takes about an hour. That to me has been the most palpable lesson in what AI can do and how it can speed up supply chain processes. We haven't applied that to our managing of materials. I do think there's an opportunity there. I think that we're going to start in the next probably 18 months using AI to look at the way we batch and wave orders for efficiency. So that will save labor, which to some degree will save materials and have a sustainability impact. But one of the things that AI could do that we don't do right now is optimize outbound box size. We've all had that experience of, Oh my God, somebody just sent me a pen and it's in a shoe size box. What are they thinking? There are often good reasons why bad mistakes like that in terms of carton curation are made, but there's a real opportunity, I think, with box selection and dimensionalizing of products to sort that out and sort it out in a systemic and more sustainable way. And so that's just 1 way that I think that AI will impact how we deploy materials over time. I think they're more sophisticated ones also. I think that you'll find that. I mean, we charge our forklift trucks. We don't use propane anymore, thank God. But the charging takes energy and that that draws down on the grid. If you can have a more efficient path through the warehouse for your forklift trucks. You're saving juice. So you're saving money and that's a sustainable impact. I think all of those things over time will be impacted by AI. It's, an embryonic stage right now. And even so we see a real impact.

Tom Raftery: 19:11

And when onboarding new clients, how important is it to align on sustainability goals from the outset? And what kind of role does collaboration play in achieving sustainability objectives in supply chain partnerships?

Thom Campbell: 19:26

So a lot of the brands we work with are influencer brands. So if your name is Kim or Kylie or Bobby Brown or Haley Bieber there's a good chance that you're going to hire some very experienced supply chain operators. And there's a good chance that they've worked with us before. And we're often fortunate enough to get those opportunities, whether it's them or any number of other brands. leading influencers which is great. But the challenge is, is that these people are very present on social media. And so if something goes wrong with a shipment, if it isn't sustainably packaged, if it isn't on brand, if you will, the implications are very significant because of the profile of the principle behind the brand. So, it's critical that we align with that brand and that we make sure that they're pack out is reflective of their values. And increasingly, these celebrities are very, very focused on sustainability. And if it's not celebrities, it's major corporations that actually have metric driven requirements around sustainability. And so we have to figure out what those are from the get go. We have an extensive onboarding process. We have a director of onboarding who's kind of amazing. If I say so, I hope she doesn't see this. No, I hope she does see this. And she spends a great deal of time on the curation of the packout. And then once that packout is memorialized, we laminate it and it sits out there in the warehouse floor on every packing station. And as it is changed over time, we iterate and we revise. A lot of the materials we use are recyclable. But t a bit. So for example, th papillon paper, which is like stretchy paper. good protective layers ar it's not bubble wrap and we do also use recyclable air pillows, but they're perhaps a little less aesthetic than some of the recyclable tissue or Papillon paper that we can provide. Brands are really, fully focused on this. And in particular I think the influencer Cadre has no choice, but to focus on it because their consumers are telling them what they think about the ship, that when it arrives every day, all day, and in you know, numbers that are tens of thousands. So it's a big deal and we have to pay a lot of attention to it.

Tom Raftery: 21:42

Sure, makes sense. Looking ahead, what long term sustainability goals should the logistics industry be striving for? And how do you envision regulations like California's WARE program shaping the future of supply chains and emissions reduction?

Thom Campbell: 22:00

So the where program for us is an immediate reality and as a company that just barely hits the requirement. So you're required to comply if you have a facility that's over 100,000 square feet. So I have about 115,000 square feet just in there, but that's fine. And so what that means is that I have to track every single vehicle that comes in and out of my facility, whether it's diesel or gasoline. And I do that, and I have to report that, and there's going to be a sliding scale of fees that you pay on an annual basis, anywhere from five or $10,000 ramping up in the next few years to $25,000 a year, which is driven by the size of your facility. If I want, I can mitigate that by installing electric chargers, for example, for cars. When we built this building, we actually wired it in advance for chargers. We haven't deployed it, but we have a few Teslas in the lot. At some point we will probably enable that capability. And on the West Coast, we're doing the ROI right now on balancing out whether where is going to drive us to install electric chargers. And if so, what kind? And where do we put them? Are they for the trucks? Are they for the employees' cars? Those are all decisions and considerations. I think it's just the beginning. California is as they are often in these matters a little bit ahead of the curve. I think they're trying to focus more on the bulge bracket. So again, we only just hit the hurdle where it applies to us, but it matters. I mean, it's the most expensive rent we have in any facility in the States already. And this is just an additional cost on top of that. And it's not massive, but they're driving us to do things that, again, we're a third party company. So we live to provide services to other companies. I'm very focused on sustainability, but at the same time nobody's paying me to do it. And, so over time as people have asked us about it, we've tried to be very candid about the degree that we're practical, we're not a build it and they will come kind of company. We have a service, we offer that service. We strive for excellence in that service. And to the degree that sustainability has become inextricable with that service, it's become really important for us, but it's been organic. It's not 22 years ago. I sat down with my co founders and said, we're going to do it this way. No, we sat down and we said, we're not going to use peanuts. Cause they're evil. They get everywhere. They're nasty. I don't like to receive them. And it was much more emotional decision at the time. Now it's more of a business decision.

Tom Raftery: 24:27

Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. There's a lot of discussion today as well about whether e-commerce or traditional retail is more sustainable. What's your take on this? And how might consumer behavior influence sustainability efforts in these sectors?

Thom Campbell: 24:42

I do believe that brick and mortar retailer still is a more efficient solution for delivering product to consumers. I also very much like to focus on ordering directly from brands because I have so much proximity to the brand experience. And I think it's really important. I think that that consumer experience. Is a really important way to get to know a brand. We always order from brands that we're in prospecting conversations with. We always order from new partners to at least benchmark and baseline what their customer presentation looks like. But I think if you think about the 90 plus percent of trade that goes through retailers, and you think about the efficiencies that you enjoy by getting all of the products into a retailer and bringing the consumers to there. I got to believe that that's more efficient. It doesn't mean that we're not going to see a steady movement away from in person shopping, but I think people still like to shop in person. I mean, I think, I think about bookstores, for example. I love books I'm an avid consumer of them through online channels, but I do everything I can to purchase from and support any small bookstores that are in my life because I couldn't live without them. And it's just such a unique feeling going into that store. And also it's a very heavy product. More than some of the beauty products that we are fairly concentrated in, or the smaller electronics items or even jeans and socks. Books weigh a lot. So the efficiencies of getting them to a store by truck versus getting them to a consumer by parcel carrier I think are pretty dramatic.

Tom Raftery: 26:19

If we were to take a Marie Kondo approach to supply chains, what clutter would you say companies need to eliminate to spark sustainability joy?

Thom Campbell: 26:31

That's a great way of putting it. I haven't heard that before. I have a guy who runs my indie facility and Jesse White is it very strong experienced professional and his goal when he walks you into his warehouses, he wants you no matter what your level of experience or knowledge is, and this is very much about his five s background and six sigma training, he wants you to walk in and see exactly where everything is. Oh, that's receiving. Oh, that's outbound. Oh, that's pick and pack for e-commerce. That's pick and pack for B2B. That's case processing for B2B. Oh, you're doing assembly work and value added services over there. He wants it all immediately to be visible as to where you are and what you're doing and what each area's functional role and the overall operation is. And he wants it to flow visually. So it's a good facility for that. We happen to have receiving docks on one side. We have all the pallet rack and storage in the middle. And then we have the outbound docks. But I think that's kind of the Marie Kondo for supply chain, if you will. I operated small and dark warehouses when I started the business, because what we could afford was what we could afford. It's a source of no small pride when somebody walks into your facility and said, this is, this is very impressive. This looks great. It's well lit. It's clean. Your people are happy. You get eye contact. You can walk into the warehouse bathroom without gagging. Those things are really, really important. If you want to differentiate, like a lot of people are going to talk a lot about the AI and the robotics, and the OMS, and the WMS. That stuff is very important too. Don't get me wrong. It's critical. It was part of the premise with which we built the business. But if you walk into it and it doesn't feel good, well, that's probably because it isn't good. And those people are the last people to touch the product before your consumer or retailer gets it.

Tom Raftery: 28:17

Yep. Good point. How about when we talk about engaging customers through sustainable practices? How can companies leverage their sustainability initiatives to enhance customer experience and satisfaction? Do you see sustainability becoming a deciding factor for consumers when choosing between brands?

Thom Campbell: 28:37

That's an excellent question, and I think we are really at the infancy of that. So, for example, how would you respond if a consumer, say, was able to order two different ways from a retailer? And they said, we can give you this gift presentation, or we can give you this really cheap and cheerful approach, which is also more sustainable. We want to know what you prefer. Now, I think there are people who are going to take that gift like presentation because it's important to them and that unboxing experience that people are always talking about really does matter and it does burnish the brand. But let's say you've been ordering from that brand for a certain number of years. Like, you get it, you already know what you're in for. And I love to order directly from the brand because I like that feeling of connectivity with what it is that's going on in their supply chain in toto. But if you could offer people more sustainable options over time, I bet the majority of people would take this and it doesn't have to be quite as unglamorous as, the brown box a la Amazon, which is obviously the lowest common denominator. Although it's extremely fast and most people who are ordering a lot from Amazon are using prime. So there's a cost effectiveness to the shipping aspect of it. So I think that the consumer's choice is what's going to be the innovation that we see. And the brands are always going to be striving to meet the consumer where they are. And if that is a more glorified presentation, then they'll do that. If that is cheap, cheerful, and sustainable, then they'll do that. I think that's what's going to drive change. I do think that there are macro changes. Like I said, the Retailer Consolidation Program, no consumer who orders from my brands knows what that is, but it really matters. It really is. It's probably the number one way besides solar back to the grid that we're driving sustainable practices.

Tom Raftery: 30:27

What about measuring the impact of sustainability initiatives, how important is it to track and measure what kind of KPIs should people use, to get continuous improvement in their projects?

Thom Campbell: 30:39

So first, let me admit, this is not my area of expertise. As I often tell my operators, like if you're turning to me for data analysis at our company, you're in trouble. But I do have objective key results across every area of my business. I've got a service level agreement around how accurate your inventory is. I've got a service level agreement about how many on time and accurate shipments I'm going to send out, and I represent all of that in Tableau and push it through an online portal to my clients. So it's really, really, really important. And I already have Fortune 100 clients who have OKRs and SLAs and KPIs around sustainability. And I think that those aspects of sustainability are only going to get more nuanced, more developed ,more built out and they're going to be, they're going to become table stakes because if you can't comply with them and you can't capture them, I mean, forget about the regulations for operating, for example, in California, which is kind of modest. It's, capturing it in and out for a truck, but I needed to turn to a partner through we have a minority institutional shareholder, Mitsui, and they have a subsidiary Penske and they have a subsidiary Penske Energy. And I needed to get an expert in to help me with data capture around that issue. And they were great. And fast and friendly. And I think that expertise like that is going to grow enormously. And one of the ideas I had I've not become a serial entrepreneur, but if I were there's a whole service industry that services the oil extraction and exploration industry. Why wouldn't there be similar third party service industries that service, the sustainability industries? Whether it's wind, solar, et cetera, and I'm sure those are already nascent, but I think we'll see more and more of it as time goes by, because it's going to be a larger percentage of the energy that we use.

Tom Raftery: 32:32

Fair enough. Left field question. If you could have any celebrity or fictional character live or dead as a spokesman for or spokesperson for sustainability initiatives and supply chain, who would you choose and why?

Thom Campbell: 32:49

That is a good one. And I'm not prepared to answer it, but I would say there is a lot to be said for the legacy of Silent Spring and her book redefined our generation. And way we look at putting things into the environment and what that does to what we get out. So Carson's masterpiece, which was a very grim read when I was very young. It's a bit like June Jacobs is, you know, treaties on why we're not doing a good job building cities that are sustainable and that have light and you know, and we still fly in the face of some of those, those wisdoms to this day, but I think that Silent Spring It kind of hit people where they live. It did change things. People forget, but, Nixon created the EPA, enormous changes came out of Silent Spring. So she wouldn't be an appropriate spokesman for my company, but maybe for my generation of care and concern for the environment. That might be the one that I choose.

Tom Raftery: 33:58

Nice, lovely. Thom, we're coming towards the end of the podcast now. Is there any question I haven't asked that you wish I had, or any aspect of this we haven't touched on that you think it's important for people to think about?

Thom Campbell: 34:10

That's a good question. I think one of the things that my late godfather used to always ask whenever we would travel abroad and come back is what surprised you most? And it sounds like a really simple question, but it was a good question. And he always asked it. In fact, we would joke about it and we always answered it. And it always came back with some positive findings. And I think that's the one question that I would always ask of myself. Is what surprised you most? And I think that what has surprised me most is that I worked in corporate America and in software startups and in scientific societies and, you know, everything from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers to Morgan Stanley. And that was a good career. And that was sort of the first half or third of my professional career. But I really had very distinct personalities between my, my business persona and my, my personal interests, which were often focused on art or literature or music, whatever. A lot of things in the mountains, climbing and skiing. And I thought the two were really, really separate. And then when I started my own business, I just realized that there's just no way that was going to work anymore. And so one of the things that has surprised me most is the degree to which it's required the convergence of all aspects of me and probably anybody to really bring excellence to what you do and to bring your values to a company and create a culture. And that was really surprising. I hope that answers your question.

Tom Raftery: 35:40

Yeah, no, that's lovely. Great. Fantastic. Thom, if people would like to know more about yourself or any of the things we discussed in the podcast today, where would you have me direct them?

Thom Campbell: 35:50

Well, the great place to start is often our website, of course, which is www. capacityllc. com. We, as a company are also on LinkedIn and encourage you to check us out there. I'm in both places as well, and we really do welcome any and all outside interest. We have a wonderful group of people here. Many have worked here almost as long as I have. My partner and I have been here 25 years, but we've got our chief operating officer has got almost 20 years. Our vice president of logistics has almost 20 years. We have some extraordinary tenure and we like to think that that's because it's a good place to work. So whether you're a potential partner or a potential colleague we'd love to hear from you. And thanks very much for having me on the podcast.

Tom Raftery: 36:34

Thanks, Tom. It's been really, really, really interesting. Thanks a million for coming on.

Thom Campbell: 36:38

My pleasure. Have a good one.

Tom Raftery: 36:40

Okay. Thank you all for tuning into this episode of the Sustainable Supply Chain Podcast with me, Tom Raftery. Each week, thousands of supply chain professionals listen to this show. If you or your organization want to connect with this dedicated audience, consider becoming a sponsor. You can opt for exclusive episode branding where you choose the guests or a personalized 30 second ad roll. It's a unique opportunity to reach industry experts and influencers. For more details, hit me up on Twitter or LinkedIn, or drop me an email to tomraftery at outlook. com. Together, let's shape the future of sustainable supply chains. Thanks. Catch you all next time.