Emissions Visibility Is the New Must-Have for Supply Chains

Emissions Visibility Is the New Must-Have for Supply Chains

Visibility in a supply chain is about more than just knowing where a shipment is located. Companies are more focused on sustainability and emissions (for good reason) than ever before, which makes the ability to measure and manage emissions a new type of visibility that every shipping operation needs.

There’s a good chance, as a shipper, you’ve already been asked what your company’s supply chain is doing to be more sustainable, including reducing emissions. Companies make daily choices that impact emissions, but they need to make informed decisions. Visibility into how emissions are influenced by those choices is necessary to do so in a measurable way.

 

Why is the topic of emissions so popular right now?

For one, it’s the right thing to do. Supply chain emissions, by some estimates, represent 80% of all global greenhouse gas emissions. Every supply chain’s daily operation involves countless decisions about how to manage shipments, all of which have an impact.

Many of your customers care deeply about sustainability. And for some, it will even be a part of their decision to buy from you or not. They want to know you’re operating a responsible supply chain, including minimizing the emissions it generates.

There are growing regulations and laws surrounding emissions. More governments are holding companies accountable through compliance requirements that govern the sustainability of their shipping operations. These can impact everyone involved in supply chains, including transportation providers and shippers who’ll often have culpability in adhering to the evolving guidelines.

Last but not least, being smart about emissions usually aligns with reducing costs. Optimizing emissions often comes with cost savings as well. As you’ll soon read, it’s common that doing more to reduce emissions creates other significant efficiencies for a supply chain.

 

Taking Action and Measuring Improvement

Well-known initiatives like the Smartway Partnership are important and a good step for companies to take, but there is a lot more companies can do by making deliberate changes in their operations to reduce emissions.

The importance of reducing emissions is clear, but two important and difficult questions remain.

 

First, what are ways to reduce emissions?

Here are five areas within a company’s control that can have an impact.

1 – Being more considerate with mode selection for each shipment

Shipping mode has a big impact on emissions. Air freight, for example, creates more emissions than truckload. But intermodal (rail) is more efficient than truckload. In fact, moving freight by rail instead of truck lowers emissions by up to 75%, on average according to the Association of American Railroads.

2 – Optimizing through load pooling, lane consolidation, and multi-stop deliveries

All of these tactics result in fewer trucks on the road, which is an obvious way to lower emissions. Companies that find ways to combine shipments more efficiently can limit the number of trucks used (and save money in the process).

3 – Focus on weight reduction

Like distance, weight directly impacts emissions by reducing the amount of fuel it takes to move the product. Dense, heavy materials create more emissions. Of course, this can be unavoidable for many companies, but this makes finding other opportunities from this list all the more important when that is the case.

4 – By increasing trailer utilization

Another way to use fewer trucks is by filling up the trailers you do use with more product. Companies that actively set target goals for increasing average pallet counts, cube, or weight can usually drive some improvement by reducing trucks shipping below what’s optimal.

5 – With better network design

Distance shipped will always correlate closely to emissions. Companies that can compare scenarios, such as the distance from suppliers and consignees, understand the deviation from the baseline for emissions based on the different network design choices they make.

 

Then with actionable ideas in place, how can companies measure the impact of their new choices?

To make visibility possible for shippers, eShipping has created Carbon Tracker, a Power BI dashboard that calculates carbon footprint impact based on shipping data. With it, companies can understand the impact of all the factors and solutions we’ve described, like choices related to carriers, lanes, optimization, weight, pooling and consolidation, and other changes that can reduce emissions.

Carbon Tracker is a tool built by eShipping to empower our customers with visibility into their transportation emissions data and help them make more informed decisions toward achieving their company’s sustainability goals.

To learn more and see how Carbon Tracker can provide the visibility on emissions your company needs, contact eShipping.