The carbon footprint and energy trade-offs of global logistics networks are examined in this study. Emissions were computed based on carbon intensity, distance, and cargo weight using a simulated quantitative dataset of 200 international shipments via air, road, rail, and ocean transportation. According to the average modal data, air freight had the highest carbon intensity at roughly 500 gCO₂/ton-km, followed by rail at 30 gCO₂/ton-km, road transport at 100 gCO₂/ton-km, and sea transport at 20 gCO₂/ton-km. These averages support the idea that slower modes are more energy-efficient while faster modes are often more carbon-intensive. The link between delivery time, transportation cost, and carbon emissions was investigated using a multiple regression model. Transport costs had a significant positive impact on emissions, according to the regression results (coefficient = 0.0004, p < 0.001), whereas delivery time had a lesser but still beneficial impact (coefficient = 0.018, p = 0.003). The model described 97.5% of the variation in carbon emissions, with an intercept of 1.39 tCO₂ (R2 = 0.975). The study comes to the conclusion that cost, speed, and environmental responsibility must all be balanced for sustainable logistics. It suggests switching to rail and sea as a mode of transportation, pricing carbon, adopting renewable energy, electrification, AI-based routing, and more cooperation between logistics stakeholders.
Keywords: Energy, Global, Logistics, Network, carbon footprint, trade-offs
