Green Logistics Begin With Carbon Footprint Transparency
How companies can use carbon footprint calculators to obtain clarity and accuracy on their greenhouse gas 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 carbon reduction actions once there is transparency on current greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This focused approach is key to decarbonization and to achieving a sustainable supply chain.
Making Best Use of Carbon Reporting to Achieve Transparency
Today, many companies have access to annual carbon 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 carbon footprint. It’s true to say an annual carbon report can have a positive impact on next year’s carbon footprint, and it can help steer the organization to identify potential carbon reduction levers.
At DHL Global Forwarding we consider two key decarbonization levers: one is "burning less" (by continuously optimizing the supply chain to increase carbon efficiency) and the other is "burning clean" (leveraging sustainable fuels and other emerging technologies to truly decarbonize the supply chain).
With today’s technologies, it is possible to both identify opportunities to improve carbon efficiency and use low emission transport solutions to decarbonize supply chains.
Using Simulation Models for Carbon Footprint Calculations
In an ideal world, we would all be using primary data as the basis for carbon footprint calculation. All companies that operate ocean vessels, aircraft, trucks, trains, and barges would submit real-time information about fuel consumption, CO2 emissions, and GHG emission reductions achieved through the use of sustainable fuels via blockchain, enabling perfect end-to-end carbon 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.
Already 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 and leg-by-leg emissions for individual shipments.
These days, freight forwarders are using these simulation models in carbon calculation engines to deliver very useful information about fuel consumption and GHG emissions. Shippers need only 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 carbon footprint of a shipment. They can then interrogate the engine and evaluate the carbon impact of changing the mode mix, shortening the distance, sharing the load (ie, LTL shipment), and more..
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Carbon 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 carbon-efficient path. However, due to a road construction, drivers may be required to take a detour, significantly elevating the carbon 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 Carbon Footprint
In addition to carbon reports and past carbon calculations, what’s needed is a reliable way to estimate the carbon footprint before each shipment starts. This means measuring not just the potential carbon emissions of the shipment but also – when sustainable fuel is used – taking the potential carbon reductions into account.
Carbon calculators can be used to estimate the potential carbon footprint of a given shipment and choose the most carbon efficient transport mode.
Finding Alternatives by Using Scenario Analyses
Scenario analyses are an excellent method of pinpointing carbon-cutting 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 cut the carbon footprint.
Achieving Transparency With Carbon 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 carbon footprint of future shipments ahead of time.
Carbon transparency is the essential starting point for every journey towards sustainable logistics. Today’s carbon 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 carbon calculator!
Now is Your Turn
The DHL Carbon Calculator makes your carbon footprint data transparent to help you reduce your emissions. Simulate your shipments’ impact for free today.
