Biography

Alan McKinnon is Professor of Logistics in the Kühne Logistics University in Hamburg. He was founder and director of the Logistics Research Centre at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh and is now a professor emeritus of this university. He has held visiting professorships in China, Malaysia, Sweden, South Africa and the UK. A graduate of the universities of Aberdeen, British Columbia and London, he has been researching and teaching in freight transport / logistics for 40 years and has published extensively in journals and books on many different aspects of the subject. Professor McKinnon has been an adviser to several governments, parliamentary committees and international organisations, including the OECD, the World Bank, the United Nations and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. He was chairman of the World Economic Forum’s Logistics and Supply Chain Council and member of its Council on the Future of Mobility. He was a member of the European Commission’s High Level Group on Logistics and chairman of the Transport Advisory Group of the EU’s Horizon 2020 research programme. In addition to his public sector work, Professor McKinnon has been a consultant to numerous companies and trade associations. Much of his research over the past decade has been on the links between logistics and climate change. His book on ‘decarbonizing logistics’ was published in June 2018. He is a Fellow of both the European Logistics Association and Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport. In 2003 he received the CILT’s highest distinction, the Sir Robert Lawrence Award.