Ulm, Germany, 29 April, 2024 — Transporeon, a Trimble Company, has released “The 2024 Green Freight Report: Is Transportation on Track?” The report covers the road freight sector’s decarbonisation efforts and priorities as an information source for scenario planning, decarbonisation strategies, target setting and action planning.
When it comes to decarbonisation strategy for the transport sector, modal shift (21.8%) was the top choice to drive freight decarbonisation in 2023, according to the report. Among other top shippers’ choices to drive freight decarbonisation were load and routing optimisation (18.2%), as well as carrier optimisation (13.8%).
Clearly, shippers are looking for more multimodal solutions, more carbon-efficient operations, and even more carbon-efficient carriers, but optimising routes and carriers requires primary data provided by carriers.
Sustainability Equals Business Opportunities
The data reveals that a quarter of the responding carriers and more than half of the shippers consider road freight decarbonisation to be a significant business opportunity. Although 24% of carriers cite environmental sustainability as a significant or very significant business opportunity, this number is down from 27% in 2022, which can be attributed to future uncertainty as well as instability of the current economic climate.
Other findings on key drivers of freight decarbonization include:
- Regulation continues to be seen, particularly by carriers, to be the leading driver of decarbonisation followed by different forms of monetary incentives.
- Specifically, as a motivator for decarbonisation, carriers would appreciate customers that are paying premiums or are offering longer contracts, but also governmental subsidies and tax incentives.
- Quick wins like fuel reduction measures/technologies and transportation management platforms that support CO2 measurement and reduction have immediate positive impacts on operating costs, while regulation and changing customer behaviour usually require longer lead times.
However, many respondents lack a coherent decarbonisation strategy – and aren’t accurately measuring emissions.
59% of the responding carriers reported being able to calculate their transport related CO2 emissions, compared to 55% in 2022. Over half of the responding carriers reported using either a Transportation Management System (TMS) application or third-party calculation tool to calculate their CO2 emissions related to transport.
Despite respondents recognizing multiple benefits for their business to decarbonize, most shipper respondents are not aware whether their company has a freight decarbonisation strategy in place (56.91%). Only 16% were certain their company had implemented targets and/or a strategy. This demonstrates a significant gap between intention and execution.
This gap becomes even more evident when considering how shippers and carriers are measuring their carbon emissions. Only 20% of respondents are measuring carbon emissions using primary data and a significant proportion (40%) still rely on less accurate estimated data.
Access to quality data and the use of reliable calculation methods are a prerequisite for effective carbon emissions management. Officially recognised methodologies, like ISO 14083 or the GLEC framework, are the gold standard for calculating CO2 emissions, if backed by primary data. However, the number of shippers using such methodologies is still under 50%. On the carrier side, less than a quarter (23%) of respondents said they were using these methodologies, while 38% reported use of their own methods, which leaves a potential gap in reporting in the future.
Collaboration and Data Sharing is Key to Support Decarbonisation
Almost half (46.8%) of carrier respondents say they are not willing to share their primary data to allow for others to calculate CO2 emissions. According to Transporeon's research, the level of collaboration for decarbonising freight is very low. With the low level of willingness on the carrier side to collaborate on data sharing and with more than half (53%) of the responding shippers reporting that they do not actively engage their carriers on decarbonization, suggests a lack of trust and collaboration between shippers and carriers. There is also an absence of industry-wide collaboration between shippers, with only 3% of respondents citing this as a priority.
This low level of collaboration goes both ways. For instance, most shippers (53%) do not engage actively with carriers to decarbonise freight transportation and 70% of carrier respondents report that significantly less shippers requested CO2 emission data in 2023 than in 2022 – a concerning trend.
Final Thoughts
Serge Schamschula, head of ecosystem at Transporeon says, “This survey reveals that most stakeholders within the supply chain find collaboration too complex. In order to enhance efficiencies, all parties can look for seamless collaboration by adopting a network approach. In addition, decarbonisation requires teamwork. To ensure robust emissions calculations and trust in the data, collaboration within the freight decarbonisation ecosystem can be significantly facilitated by a smart platform in the future.
The report was conducted in collaboration with Trimble, KLU Kuehne Logistics University and Smart Freight Centre, and is based on the findings from a global survey with over 700 respondents including 181 shippers and 527 carriers in Europe and North America.
To access the “2024 Green Freight Report: Is transportation on track?” in its entirety, visit: www.transporeon.com/en/reports/green-freight-report-2024