Sealog has existed since 2010 as a logistics company, but in 2019, CEO Mathan Kumar made the bold and forward-thinking leap to become a total green delivery company. The objective was to convert to electric and zero-carbon transportation for last-mile delivery services, to disrupt the heavily fossil-fuel based market and help tackle the climate crisis for the benefit of future generations.

For Sealog Green Delivery, the main concern in building success in sustainability was creating value. Profit was not the first consideration, creating value meant approaching the customer seeking to educate them on the threat of climate change, and explaining how a green delivery service would benefit them and their communities. So far Sealog has calculated that it has saved nearly 1300kg of carbon emissions since going moving to e- cargo bikes and electric cycles, over 160,000km travelled.

The first step for Sealog meant rejecting the traditional vans and trucks and moving to cycles. This was a unique decision and many suppliers saw cycles as outdated and unable to meet the speed of 63 delivery that their customers had become used to. However, through proving their credentials in delivering an efficient service with low carbon distribution methods, Sealog gained traction with like-minded suppliers. Sealog Green Delivery was able to partner with Agritech start-up Eden Farm to deliver fresh vegetables to customers in Indonesia. Through bikes alone, this partnership in sustainable food distribution reached upwards of 700 restaurants in 2020, and with increasing demand, the company made the transition to wholly electric cargo bikes and cycles

The efficiency and low carbon nature of Sealog’s electric cycles and E cargo bikes have attracted large logistic companies such as DHL to join their last-mile delivery platform for IKEA deliveries. Furthermore, Sealog works with world-leading sports retail outlet Decathlon for door delivery services, helping them on their way to achieving their ambitious carbon reduction targets. Their partnership with Decathlon has achieved 10kg carbon emission savings per month over 600km. Through online carbon calculators combined with their internal modelling, Sealog can calculate that this is equivalent to 4 fully grown trees or 40 pages of A4 sheets.

Sealog’s success has come in its determination to create a sustainable business model by being bold, principled, and standing out from the crowd. Their main selling point has been their ability to educate customers on the urgency of switching to green delivery to have an opportunity for a more sustainable future. Sealog is particular in the companies that they trade with and are therefore able to help larger businesses with ambitious climate targets and policies. Effectively messaging its values is a future-proof strategy for a sustainable business and having the ability to change mindsets in favour of green solutions means that customers won’t want to go back to the harmful ways of before, as they are able to receive the same high-quality service at a drastically reduced environmental cost.

We give thanks to Mathan Kumar for allowing us to interview him for this case study.

Researched and written by

- Oliver Brown , Business Development Executive