In the UK a £19 million competition to support research and development in the low and ultra low carbon vehicle supply chain has been announced. The competition will be administered by the government-backed Technology Strategy Board and the Office for Low Emission Vehicles (OLEV). It is part of the Technology Strategy Board's Low Carbon Vehicles Integrated Delivery Program, which is focused on developing the UK's low carbon vehicle industry.

The program has so far raised over £120 million in public sector funding. The full details of the competition will be released in the New Year and a full launch is expected in February.

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Greenpeace made allegations that one of Unilever's sustainable palm oil providers was illegally cutting virgin rain forest to grow more palms, when it claimed to be a sustainable vendor. In response Unilever has cut ties with that particular supplier. In May of this year Unilever committed to switch to palm oil certified as sustainable by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO).

Unilever had been fourth on Covalence's ethical ranking of multinational companies, but since the reports of illegal activities of their supplier from Greenpeace and the Wall Street Journal, the company's rating is in jeopardy.

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The Department of Transportation's (DOT) freight transportation services index (TSI) fell 10.5 percent in October from a year earlier. This is the biggest decline in the TSI in twenty years. The Bureau of Transportation Statistics reported that the TSI dropped 1.2 percent from September.

The freight index has fallen in 11 of the past 15 months and is off 5.8 percent in the first 10 months of 2009, DOT said. The TSI is a seasonally adjusted monthly index measuring the output of services provided by the for-hire transportation industries, including railroad, truck and local transit.

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In the UK, the Royal Mail has grown its profits by £7 million ($11.4 million) in the first half of their financial year despite a fall in the amount of post being sent. The Royal Mail made an operating profit of £184 million ($299 million) for the six months to the end of September, 4 percent more than last year's total of £177million ($288 million).

Royal Mail's profits would have been even higher, had it not been for the impact of the recession on General Logistics Systems (GLS), its European parcels division. Profits at GLS fell by almost a quarter, from £59 million to £45 million. The figures also showed another decline in the number of letters being sent in Britain. Royal Mail delivered an average of 72 million letters a day between April and September, 3 million a day less than the previous year and nearly 15 percent below the peak of 84 million a day in 2006.

In contrast, the United States Postal Service (USPS) announced back in August that it incurred net losses in 11 of the last 12 quarters. USPS's 2009 year-to-date net loss is stated at $4.7 billion, in spite of comprehensive, organization-wide cost reduction initiatives.

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SAP plans to launch web-based sales management software in the middle of 2010 that will compete head-to-head with programs from fast-growing rival Salesforce.com. The solution is being built from scratch so will be specifically tailored to web-based delivery.

SAP will host software for many customers on a single computer which is the method of delivery used by Salesforce.com. SAP expects the venture to be profitable by the end of 2010 by targeting sales within its own large customer base.

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CHEP has expanded its range of Intermediate Bulk Containers (IBCs), adding a lighter, non-corrosive 1000-litre all plastic container specifically designed for the food manufacturing sector. The Intercon is International Organization for Standardization (ISO) compatible, returnable, reusable and recyclable and brings additional flexibility to CHEP's range of plastic bin solutions. The Intercon can be used for both dry and liquid goods. Made from food-grade polypropylene, the Intercon is easy to handle, clean and more environmentally sustainable than non-reusable alternatives.

The Intercon is 40 per cent lighter than 1000-litre composite alternatives, significantly increasing payload capacity and reducing reverse logistics costs. The food-grade polypropylene does not rot or become corroded and the unit's unique design makes it suitable for both dry and liquid food products.

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The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has said that it will make a formal decision in 2010 on whether to allow a 15 percent blend of ethanol in domestic gasoline, after initial tests showed that cars can run on the fuel. The plan to raise the limit from the 10 percent blend put forward in 1978 has been wanted by ethanol producers. The ethanol industry says that allowing 15 percent blends of ethanol in gasoline, called E15, would create 136,000 permanent jobs and 500,000 construction jobs, as well as cutting the need to import as much as 7 billion gallons of oil a year.

The EPA had faced a December 1st deadline to issue a decision on the proposal but it said that it will await further field testing by the Energy Department. Currently testing has shown that no problems have been found on any vehicle from any model year on the E15 fuel. The EPA have stated that "while not all tests have been completed, the results of two tests indicate that engines in newer cars likely can handle an ethanol blend higher than the current 10 percent limit."

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Customer Relationship Management (CRM) leader, Salesforce.com, won four customer relations management awards this week from CRM Magazine. The enterprise cloud computing provider swept the CRM suite categories, including the midmarket CRM suite, small business suite, and enterprise suite awards, becoming the first company to win in all three categories.

The fourth award was given to Salesforce.com's, chief executive Marc Benioff won the "Influential Leader" honor for the fifth time. CRM magazine chose the winners after a three-month review period based on a rating formula that includes corporate and financial data, customer satisfaction scores, functionality and product assessments, and input by industry analysts.

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E2open, a leading provider of on-demand demand-supply network solutions, today announced that it has been positioned in the Leaders Quadrant in Gartner's 2009 Magic Quadrant for Integration Service Providers.

Gartner estimated that companies worldwide spent more than $1.5 billion on integration-as-a-service (IaaS) and B2B integration outsourcing and expects to see continued growth. With the introduction of E2open 7.0 in June 2009, the company has been delivering large-scale, international B2B projects. E2open offers pre-built integrations to its network of more than 75,000 trading partners, which is the largest global trading partner network in the world. Some of E2open's clients include Boeing, Cisco, Dell, Hitachi, Philips and Seagate.

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Optricity, the supply chain optimization software provider has released a very informative whitepaper entitled, Warehouse Slotting: Increase Performance Using the Five 'P's in Your Slotting Universe. The paper discusses the increasing complexity of the warehouse environment and how understanding the universe of warehouse slotting facilitates a smooth flow of goods.

The paper helps readers to understand their slotting universe and how that can maximize warehouse performance. Fine tuning the warehouse along the Five Ps, defined as product, performance, people, pallet and purchaser, creates a roadmap for warehousing success according to Optricity.

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