Emission Reduced Logistics Begins With Transparency
How companies can use greenhouse gas (GHG) footprint calculators to obtain clarity and accuracy on their emissions
The saying “You can’t manage what you can’t measure" has become particularly pertinent to the task of decarbonizing logistics & supply chain. In companies large and small, across all industries, it’s only possible to take the right emission reduction actions once there is transparency on current GHG emissions. This focused approach is key to decarbonization and to achieving a emission reduced supply chain.
Understanding the GHG footprint of the supply chain is crucial for the success of any decarbonization initiative.
Kathrin Brost, VP Global Head of GoGreen Program, DHL Global Forwarding
Making Best Use of GHG Reporting to Achieve Transparency
Today, many companies have access to annual GHG reports. Looking carefully through these reports is, of course, an extremely valuable exercise but bear in mind they only provide a snapshot of the past – typically last year’s GHG footprint. It’s true to say an annual carbon report can have a positive impact on next year’s GHG footprint, and it can help steer the organization to identify potential GHG reduction levers.
At DHL Global Forwarding we consider two key decarbonization levers: one is "burning less" (by continuously optimizing the supply chain to increase GHG efficiency) and the other is "burning clean" (leveraging sustainable fuels and other emerging technologies to continue to decarbonize the supply chain).
With today’s technologies, it is possible to both identify opportunities to improve GHG efficiency and use low emission transport solutions to further decarbonize supply chains.
Using Simulation Models for GHG Footprint Calculations
In an ideal world, we would all be using primary data as the basis for GHG footprint calculation. All companies that operate ocean vessels, aircraft, trucks, trains, and barges would submit real-time information about fuel consumption, CO2e emissions, and GHG emission reductions achieved through the use of more sustainable fuels via blockchain, enabling perfect end-to-end GHG visibility.
This isn’t yet happening in the industry but that shouldn’t prevent shippers from calculating the GHG emissions for their shipments to identify decarbonization levers and inform decision making.
Right now companies can work with the next best thing – sophisticated simulation models which include aircraft-specific emissions factors, routings from schedules, utilization factors, and more from industry databases to derive reasonably accurate calculations about the carbon footprint as well as leg-by-leg emissions for individual shipments.
These days, freight forwarders are using these simulation models in GHG calculation engines to deliver very useful information about fuel consumption and GHG emissions. Shippers only need to input basic information – including the shipment’s weight, origin and destination, as well as any stopover point, and the transportation mode – to achieve visibility of the GHG footprint of a shipment. They can then interrogate the engine and evaluate the GHG impact of changing the mode mix, shortening the distance, sharing the load (ie, LTL shipment), and more..
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GHG Transparency Means Getting the Right Level of Detail
There is a tendency to think that additional granularity is required, but outline calculations leveraging industry databases are fairly accurate in most use cases.
It is easy to get sidetracked into comparing, say, rail companies that use different energy mixes or considering whether driver training increases a trucking company’s fuel efficiency. Of course, this finer level of granularity will always add accuracy, but shippers should not be distracted by the smallest details. The focus should be firmly on doing the right thing.
Aggregated data often provides a reliable and accurate source of insights. For instance, analyzing all shipments a shipper has dispatched along a particular trade route over a month or quarter can provide invaluable clarity.
Consider this scenario: a trucking company routinely operates along a specific route for a client, meticulously selecting the shortest and thus most GHG-efficient path. However, due to a road construction, drivers may be required to take a detour, significantly elevating the GHG footprint of the client's shipments for several days. Focusing solely on individual shipment data, the client might expend time and resources in identifying optimization strategies. Conversely, a broader examination of aggregated data would reveal that under normal circumstances, the chosen route is already highly efficient.
Measuring the Future GHG Footprint
In addition to GHG reports and past GHG calculations, what’s needed is a reliable way to estimate the GHG footprint before each shipment starts. This means measuring not just the potential GHG emissions of the shipment but also – when more sustainable fuel is used – taking the potential emission reductions into account.
GHG calculators can be used to estimate the potential GHG footprint of a given shipment and choose the most GHG efficient transport mode.
Finding Alternatives by Using Scenario Analyses
Scenario analyses are an excellent method of pinpointing GHG-reducing opportunities. A shipper can, for example, imagine shifting end-to-end airfreight between Asia and Europe to an intermodal alternative – perhaps sending goods by ocean freight from Asia to Dubai and then onwards by air to Europe. This switch would likely increase the overall transit time but significantly reduce overall GHG emissions. Similarly, companies can compare shipping goods from the closest airport or trucking them to a more distant airport – if the more distant airport has better airfreight links to destination, this could reduce the GHG footprint.
Achieving Transparency With GHG Calculation
In the above scenarios, it’s tempting to use gut instinct, but oftentimes intuition can be misleading. This is why it’s so important to estimate the GHG footprint of future shipments ahead of time.
GHG transparency is the essential starting point for every journey towards emission-reduced logistics. Today’s GHG calculation engines, such as the DHL Carbon Calculator, are more than capable of providing accurate information to guide decision making, and the time to decarbonize is now. So there’s no better time than right now to try using your freight forwarder’s GHG calculator!
Now is Your Turn
The DHL Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Calculator makes your carbon footprint data transparent to help you reduce your emissions. Simulate your shipments’ impact for free today.
