June 27, 2025
By Nick Behan
With over three decades of experience in logistics, Gavin has witnessed and led some of the most profound changes in the sector’s modern history. From the ecommerce revolution to the rise of AI-driven operations, his insights reflect both a strategic perspective and frontline experience in transforming global supply chains.
As Managing Director for GXO in the UK & Ireland, Gavin leads a business at the forefront of innovation in logistics, helping customers navigate complexity, reduce emissions, and deliver for increasingly demanding consumers. In this conversation, he reflects on sustainability, the power of partnerships, and why the biggest opportunities often lie in the space between commercial efficiency and environmental responsibility.
Reflecting on your time in logistics, what’s been the most transformative change you’ve witnessed, and how has it shaped the way the sector operates today?
The rise of ecommerce has been by far the most transformative change I’ve experienced in over 30 years working in logistics. The growth of ecommerce, stimulated by Covid 19, has had a profound effect on logistics supply chains that were previously much more linear. We’ve had to transform processes to respond to this changing consumer behaviour, picking, packing and despatching millions of orders a day for individual consumers alongside traditional warehouse to store operations.
That has really changed the relationship between logistics providers and their customers, as 3PLs have expanded from their traditional roles to help customers meet consumer expectations. In parallel, the dramatic rise in the demand for returns processing has led to companies like GXO speedily processing millions of returns each week, working to get items returned to inventory for our customers to resell. This is a very different world to the one third-party logistics suppliers occupied even as recently as ten years ago.
The sector has a hugely elevated profile as a result, and our relationship with our customers has changed to be one of a much closer strategic partnership to meet changing consumer behaviour and expectations, as well as longer term challenges around environmental impact and exploiting opportunities presented by technological change including AI.
What do you see as the most pressing sustainability challenge in your area of the sector, and how is your organisation responding to it, either through innovation, policy, or operations?
Logistics and transport are the source of just over a third of global CO2 emissions so it’s critical our industry plays an active role in reducing carbon emissions through long-term and proactive change.
The end goal for the industry appears to be for goods to be transported by fully electrified, battery-based fleets but there is still long way to go before this becomes an economic reality.
At GXO we’ve prioritised a range of activities to reduce the impact of transport operations on greenhouse gas emissions, air quality, congestion and infrastructure. This includes using alternative fuels, such as liquified natural gas, hydrotreated vegetable oil and compressed natural gas to power our fleet. We’ve invested in technology to help optimise vehicle routes, integrating performance tracking technology into our fleet so our colleagues can optimise the most efficient routes and driving styles to reduce emissions. We also offer a shared transport service, where several customers can use the same vehicles, reducing emissions, road use and congestion, particularly in urban areas, while also enabling more efficient operations.
Reducing emissions and road usage will continue to require significant effort, innovation and clever solutions given the continuing impact logistics and transport have on the environment.
How do you balance commercial performance with the long-term imperative to become a more sustainable business, and where do you feel the biggest trade-offs or opportunities lie?
It’s critical that we achieve the commercial performance shareholders expect, as well as a long-term plan for our business to be more sustainable over time. The two aren’t mutually exclusive and we see them as two sides of the same coin. As a sector we’re constantly under pressure to deliver fast, efficient and flexible solutions for our customers and consumers, and this is often achieved through improvements in our operating practices that are also more sustainable.
Improving transport efficiencies, route optimisation, shared transport solutions and network design all help to make us efficient for our shareholders as well as customers. The warehouse network in the UK, for example, has transformed over recent years and smart building design, new technology and materials are ways in which we can again be more efficient whilst supporting sustainability goals. For example, simply by running brilliant returns process, combined with re-work and cleaning, we can significantly reduce the amount of goods sent to landfill. That’s a service our customers need and where our investment in returns services has supported our growth.
The biggest opportunity in terms of both sustainability gains and commercial value are around transforming transport solutions, designing logistics networks to reduce mileage and optimise efficiency and streamlining processes to remove waste and inefficiencies. These offer shareholders value and improve sustainability.
Where is AI already changing the game in your organisation (or the sector more broadly), and what excites or concerns you most about what’s coming next?
The most immediate impact AI has had on our organisation has been the successful development, in partnership with one of the UK’s leading AI providers, of our route optimisation platform. Unlike other AI-based transport solutions that optimise daily operations, our proprietary tool looks holistically at entire schedules, analysing millions of potential routes with AI technology. In this way we can optimise complicated transport schedules to increase efficiency while reducing costs and environmental impact. This simply wouldn’t be possible without the intelligent data processing on the scale that AI can deliver, and it’s producing real cost savings and great efficiencies for our customers.
Looking ahead, the sheer array of change in the sector is huge. AI, automation, improved data handling, robotics and the rise of humanoids present huge opportunities across all elements of the logistics industry. It is a time of great change and transformation for a sector that supports all of us every day in everything we do.
Looking ahead to 2030, what single shift do you think will most define the future of logistics, and why?
2030 doesn’t feel that far away does it. The logistics industry and many of our customers are grappling with a range of factors that I think will still be in play then; the impact of global events, geo-political instability disrupting supply chains, labour supply challenges, environmental regulation and shifting consumer demand. All of this plays out across not just global but local supply chains.
These and other factors underpin the need for the sector to be increasingly nimble, flexible and above all resilient. Without a doubt we’ll continue to see the increasing use of technology and robotics to make logistics faster, leaner and more sustainable. I expect to see more continuous improvement as customers prioritise incremental optimisation over large-scale change.