The logistics industry accounts for 11% of global greenhouse gas emissions, and warehouses make up a significant share of that total. Heating, lighting, and operating large, underutilized spaces all consume immense amounts of energy.
As businesses in Calgary and across Canada face growing expectations to operate sustainably, supply chains are under pressure to evolve. Traditional warehousing models, built for single tenants and often half-empty, are giving way to shared, multi-tenant facilities that emphasize collaboration, energy efficiency, and smarter use of resources.
This blog explores how shared warehouse models dramatically reduce emissions, optimize resource use, and strengthen both environmental and business resilience. For Calgary-based companies, they represent not only a greener choice but also a practical, cost-effective strategy for long-term competitiveness.
Energy Efficiency Through Shared Infrastructure
The Problem with Underutilized Space
Traditional single-tenant warehouses are often inefficient by design. Even when operations fluctuate, these facilities continue consuming the same amount of energy, heating, cooling, and lighting vast areas that may sit partially empty for weeks or months.
This underutilization directly translates into higher emissions and wasted costs. Each business bears the full environmental and financial burden of maintaining space that isn’t being used to its potential. Over time, these inefficiencies compound, creating a significant sustainability gap within supply chains.
Shared Warehousing as an Energy Solution
Shared warehouses solve this problem by maximizing utilization and consolidating energy demand. Instead of one company managing an oversized facility, multiple businesses share the same infrastructure, ensuring that every square foot of space serves a purpose.
This multi-tenant model improves energy efficiency through:
- Shared HVAC systems that distribute heating and cooling more efficiently across occupied zones.
- Smart zoning controls and programmable thermostats that regulate temperatures based on usage.
- Economies of scale, making it financially viable to invest in high-efficiency systems and renewable energy (like rooftop solar).
The results can be dramatic. Energy-efficient warehouses consume an average of 30 kWh/m² per year, compared to the national average of 135 kWh/m², a reduction of over 75%.
In Calgary’s cold climate, where heating represents a major energy draw, these shared systems help reduce costs and emissions simultaneously, turning a sustainability challenge into a financial advantage.
Optimized Lighting and Smart Design
Lighting accounts for roughly 15% of total warehouse energy consumption, a figure that drops significantly in shared facilities with modern design.
Shared warehouses typically operate at 40–80% utilization rates, compared to the 20–40% seen in traditional setups. That means fewer empty aisles and dark corners consuming unnecessary electricity. Many incorporate motion-activated LED lighting and natural daylighting, which together can cut lighting energy use by up to 90%.
Some companies also employ automated systems that adjust brightness and heating based on activity levels and time of day, further optimizing energy usage.
Case in point: When Bergfreunde, an outdoor retailer, implemented a shared automated storage system, the company reduced lighting needs to just 30% of total space and achieved a 30% reduction in CO₂ emissions per package shipped.
These results underscore a clear message: when warehouses share space and embrace intelligent design, they create a more sustainable, cost-efficient foundation for modern logistics.
Transportation Efficiency and Emissions Reduction
Freight Consolidation
Transportation is one of the largest contributors to supply chain emissions, accounting for nearly 27% of total global CO₂ output. A key way shared warehousing combats this is through freight consolidation.
Instead of each business shipping partial truckloads (LTL), shared warehouses combine multiple shipments into full truckloads (FTL). This coordination reduces the total number of trucks on the road and optimizes delivery routes.
Studies show that coordinated freight sharing can cut carbon emissions by 10–13% while improving cost efficiency. The result is fewer trucks, fuller loads, and a logistics network that’s both greener and leaner.
Minimizing Empty Miles
One of logistics’ biggest inefficiencies is empty or partially filled trucks, known as deadhead miles. In 2023, around 16% of total trucking miles were driven without cargo, wasting fuel, labor, and time.
Shared warehouse networks help reduce this by enabling backhaul optimization, matching outgoing shipments with return loads for other tenants. Through collaborative distribution, carriers can plan more efficient routes, ensure vehicles travel fully loaded in both directions, and dramatically reduce wasteful trips.
The outcome: lower emissions, reduced fuel costs, and better asset utilization, a triple win for both business and the environment.
Strategic Location Benefits
Shared warehouses are often strategically located near major highways and transport corridors, allowing faster, lower-emission delivery routes.
In Calgary, shared warehouse hubs positioned along Deerfoot Trail, the Trans-Canada Highway, and Barlow Trail provide unmatched connectivity to urban centers, construction zones, and Western Canadian markets.
By reducing last-mile delivery distances, businesses consume less fuel and cut delivery times, while minimizing their environmental impact. For regional or cross-border trade, this geographic advantage also translates to lower costs and higher service reliability.
Resource Optimization and Waste Reduction
Shared Equipment and Infrastructure
A major sustainability advantage of shared warehousing lies in resource pooling. Instead of every business owning its own forklift, pallet jack, or shelving, tenants share high-quality equipment within a single facility.
This collective model means:
- Less manufacturing waste from redundant equipment production.
- Lower capital costs for each business.
- Extended equipment lifespan through shared maintenance programs.
By sharing infrastructure, companies reduce not only their operational footprint but also their environmental one, turning waste reduction into everyday practice.
Waste Management and Recycling Systems
Shared warehouse environments are also ideal for centralized waste management and recycling initiatives. Because multiple businesses operate under one roof, facilities can implement efficient programs that would be costly for individual companies to run alone.
These programs often achieve:
- 25–30% reductions in total waste generation.
- 40–60% improvement in recycling accuracy through data-driven tracking.
Modern shared warehouses integrate closed-loop systems that track waste streams, separate materials at the source, and ensure proper disposal or reuse, making sustainable operations both systematic and scalable.
Inventory and Packaging Efficiency
Shared warehouse systems often utilize AI-driven inventory forecasting and centralized management, enabling tenants to maintain optimal stock levels without overordering. This precision reduces obsolete or expired inventory by up to 25%.
Packaging processes also benefit from collaboration. Shared facilities can deploy automated box-sizing systems, returnable container programs, and standardized pallets to eliminate waste from excess packaging and single-use materials.
By working together, multiple businesses can achieve economies of sustainability, reducing materials waste while enhancing efficiency and customer satisfaction.
Cost Savings That Drive Further Sustainability
Shared warehousing doesn’t just help businesses reduce emissions, it also saves money, creating a powerful feedback loop where financial efficiency fuels environmental progress.
By pooling infrastructure, utilities, and labor, businesses in shared warehouse facilities benefit from significantly lower operational costs. These savings can then be reinvested into sustainability initiatives such as:
- Installing solar panels or participating in renewable energy programs.
- Transitioning to electric delivery vehicles or hybrid fleets.
- Adopting energy-efficient equipment and packaging solutions.
Because rent, maintenance, and utilities are shared, each business carries a much smaller carbon and financial footprint. This collaboration makes advanced sustainability technologies, like smart HVAC systems, IoT sensors, and renewable energy adoption, financially feasible for small and mid-sized enterprises (SMEs) that couldn’t implement them alone.
In short, shared warehousing creates an economy of scale for sustainability, reducing barriers to entry for greener operations while maintaining profitability.
Strengthening Supply Chain Resilience Through Collaboration
Sustainability isn’t only about reducing emissions, it’s about building systems that last. Shared warehousing directly supports supply chain resilience, helping businesses adapt quickly to change and minimize the impact of disruptions.
By operating within a collaborative network, companies gain the ability to “sense and respond” in real time, adjusting storage, shipping, and inventory strategies as conditions evolve. If one route, facility, or supplier is affected, shared warehouse networks can redistribute capacity and share resources, ensuring continuity without costly downtime.
This built-in redundancy and flexibility transforms supply chains from fragile to adaptive ecosystems. It also encourages cross-industry collaboration, where businesses share insights, best practices, and even logistics support.
In Calgary, where extreme weather events and temperature fluctuations can disrupt transport and operations, shared warehousing offers a practical resilience advantage. Facilities designed for multi-tenant adaptability maintain service even when external conditions challenge traditional warehouses, keeping goods moving and businesses operating sustainably year-round.
Calgary’s Sustainability Advantage
Calgary offers a uniquely favorable environment for sustainable warehousing, combining climate efficiency, infrastructure readiness, and policy alignment to support greener logistics.
Climate Efficiency
Alberta’s naturally cold climate gives warehouses an advantage in energy-efficient temperature regulation. Facilities can leverage CO₂ refrigeration systems and heat recovery technologies that capitalize on cooler ambient air to reduce HVAC energy demand throughout most of the year.
These systems operate in subcritical mode for extended periods, achieving substantial energy savings compared to traditional refrigeration and heating methods. As a result, Calgary’s climate supports lower overall energy consumption and operational emissions, making it an ideal location for sustainability-focused warehouse operations.
Policy and City Alignment
Calgary’s Climate Strategy and Sustainable Building Policy set ambitious goals—aiming for a 60% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and net-zero emissions by 2050. Shared warehouse models align perfectly with these targets by promoting efficient space utilization, energy-sharing, and waste reduction across multiple businesses.
Through consolidated heating, lighting, and logistics networks, shared facilities help local businesses actively contribute to citywide sustainability efforts while reducing operating costs.
Real-World Applications
Several Calgary-based facilities are already implementing sustainable technologies such as:
- CO₂-based refrigeration systems with lower global warming potential (GWP).
- Heat recovery ventilation (HRV) units that capture and reuse waste heat.
- Smart thermostats and HVAC zoning to maintain energy balance.
These innovations demonstrate how shared infrastructure + smart design can transform traditional warehousing into a low-carbon logistics model, perfectly aligned with both environmental and economic goals.
Measuring Impact and Continuous Improvement
True sustainability depends on measurement and accountability. Shared warehouses enable both through data-driven visibility and real-time analytics.
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to Track
Businesses operating in shared facilities should monitor:
- Energy use per square meter to gauge HVAC and lighting efficiency.
- CO₂ emissions per unit shipped to evaluate overall carbon intensity.
- Waste diversion rates to track recycling and material recovery success.
- Transportation efficiency metrics such as load utilization and route optimization.
Tracking these metrics establishes a clear baseline for improvement and helps identify new opportunities for energy and cost savings.
Smart Systems and Integrations
Modern shared warehouses integrate Warehouse Management Systems (WMS) and IoT platforms capable of real-time sustainability reporting. These systems track everything from energy consumption to carbon output, enabling tenants to quantify environmental impact and align with ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) goals.
Furthermore, integration with eco-conscious 3PL providers allows businesses to extend sustainability throughout their logistics chain. By connecting smart warehouses with green transport networks, companies gain end-to-end visibility and measurable performance data, turning sustainability from a goal into a continuous operational standard.
Collaboration as the Future of Sustainable Logistics
The future of supply chain sustainability lies in collaboration, not isolation; and shared warehousing is leading that transformation.
By pooling infrastructure, optimizing transport networks, and leveraging technology, businesses can achieve measurable environmental gains without sacrificing efficiency or profitability. Shared warehouses don’t just reduce emissions; they create smarter, more resilient logistics systems capable of adapting to a changing world.
The results speak for themselves:
- 5–20% reductions in energy consumption through shared infrastructure and smart HVAC systems.
- 10–13% lower overall carbon emissions via consolidated freight and route optimization.
- Up to 30% less CO₂ per shipment through advanced automation and efficient space utilization.
For Calgary businesses, shared warehousing represents more than just a sustainability solution, it’s a blueprint for operational excellence. As the city moves toward its 2030 climate goals, collaborative logistics will define the most agile, cost-efficient, and environmentally responsible supply chains.
Ready to make your supply chain greener?
Explore TradeSpace’s shared warehousing options in Calgary and discover how collaboration can cut emissions, save costs, and future-proof your logistics operations.
Frequently Asked Questions
Shared warehouses consolidate multiple businesses under one roof, optimizing space and reducing energy waste from heating, lighting, and cooling unused areas. This collaboration also enables freight consolidation, meaning fewer trucks on the road and lower overall transportation emissions.
Yes. Shared warehousing allows tenants to split rent, utilities, and labor costs, lowering monthly overhead. Businesses pay only for the space and services they need, freeing up capital to reinvest in sustainability or business growth.
Energy-efficient shared facilities can cut energy use by 5–20% compared to traditional single-tenant warehouses. Advanced features like motion-activated LEDs, HVAC zoning, and heat recovery systems further improve efficiency and lower operational costs.
By pooling resources and infrastructure, shared warehouses create adaptable logistics networks that can absorb disruptions, whether from weather, demand shifts, or supply delays. Calgary’s facilities are designed for flexibility, ensuring continuity even during challenging conditions.
Absolutely. Calgary’s Climate Strategy targets a 60% GHG reduction by 2030, and shared warehousing directly contributes by lowering emissions, supporting energy-efficient operations, and promoting collaborative logistics models that align with the city’s sustainability standards.
