Enforced environmental regulations call for extending the domain of manufacturers’ responsibility to the entire product life cycle. To comply with the environmental regulations, manufacturers have constructed reverse logistics networks to re-collect their leftover waste for recycling consumed resources. However, the operational activities associated with storage, loading and transportation processes within the networks inevitably impose environmental burdens. Particularly, the transportation process largely influences environmental performance due to perpetual uses of transportation vehicles. Therefore, there is a need to develop an environmentally- conscious transportation model that can efficiently manage the uses of transportation vehicles. Additionally, it is vital to analyze its significances of environmental performance to compare quantitatively it with existing models. This paper proposes a transportation model for improving environmental performance in a reverse logistics network. This paper also presents a case study to perform its comparative analysis using Life Cycle Assessment that evaluates potential environmental impacts of a product system.

In this study, which aims to estimate the volume of greenhouse gas emitted by road transportation vehicles in Changwon City, the emission rate was calculated on the basis of the actual traffic volume measured at major crossroads and compared with the results obtained from the methodology used to estimate the greenhouse gas emissions of road transportation provided in the IPCC 2006 GL guidelines (Tier 1, Tier 3). Analysis of the results of the comparison showed that the Tier 1 methodology, which was applied in the estimation of the rate of greenhouse gas emissions, carries a high probability of underestimation, while the Tier 3 methodology carries a relatively high probability of overestimation. Therefore, when considering the assignment of permissible rates of emission to local governments, the application of the methodology, i.e. whether one uses Tier 1 or Tier 3, may result in a large difference in the rate of allowable emissions. It is suggested that a method based on the actual volume of traffic would be the most reasonable one with regard to the development of a realistic plan.