Sustainability is quite the buzzword in freight and transportation. To satisfy growing consumer and investor demand for improved environmental sustainability, many companies are tackling greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
But before transportation and logistics companies can reduce emissions, they have to be able to measure them.
Enter Emissions IQ from C.H. Robinson.
Emissions IQ is a self-serve tool designed to show C.H. Robinson customers their transportation-related carbon emissions. The tool uses customer shipment data that C.H. Robinson already has in its system, Angie Freeman, chief human resources and environmental, social and governance officer at C.H. Robinson, told FreightWaves.
“Tens of thousands of companies want to become more sustainable and bring that to their logistics and supply chains. But because of the complexity, they don’t know how to get started,” Freeman said.
Data provided by Emissions IQ allows transportation companies to examine carbon emissions among competitors. With nearly 200,000 customers and contract carriers around the world, Freeman said that this will be a useful benchmarking tool for companies to track their emission-reduction progress and compare to other shippers and the industry as a whole.
“We have the largest set of emissions benchmarking data in the world. We know we’re in a position to create a real impact on emissions now and into the future for our customers, our industry and our planet,” Freeman said.
C.H. Robinson offers emissions analysis across all modes of transportation now, but the Emissions IQ tool only has emissions-tracking capabilities for road and rail transportation. By the end of 2021, the company plans to add ocean and air emissions-tracking features.
According to the release Thursday, the emissions-tracking tool is able to measure emissions for partial loads, in collaboration with MIT and the Environmental Protection Agency. Freeman said Emissions IQ can also show retailers the amount of carbon emitted from inbound shipments from suppliers to stores.
Emissions IQ’s GHG emissions measurements are calculated using a “globally recognized methodology” for multimodal supply chains, the Global Logistics Emissions Counsel framework.
Global bedding manufacturer and designer Tempur Sealy is already seeing results from C.H. Robinson’s emissions-tracking tools.
“C.H. Robinson’s advanced technology and thorough analysis highlighted opportunities to
improve the efficiency of our supply chain. … We reduced domestic carbon emissions by nearly 1,000 metric tons of CO2 equivalents and saved over $150,000 in just three months,” Scott Vollet, executive vice president of global operations at Tempur Sealy, said in a statement.
Click here for more FreightWaves articles by Alyssa Sporrer.
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