Abstract

Wood transportation is an important source of greenhouse gas emissions, which should be considered when the carbon neutrality of the forest industry is of concern. The EU is dedicated to improving technology for a carbon-neutral development. This study investigates carbon neutrality by improving road freight transportation fleets consisting of various vehicle size combinations. The environmental emission and energy efficiency of a transportation fleet were analyzed in selected wood procurement regions of Stora Enso corporation (Finland). Based on the enterprise resource planning (ERP) data (2018–2020), the environmental emission efficiency increased by 11% via 76 t-vehicles compared 64 t vehicles. The maximum reduction in fuel consumption was 26% for 92 t vehicles, though this was achieved when operations were fully adjusted to the maximum weight limit. The wood-based energy efficiency measure (wood energy/transport energy) was a useful development indicator. It showed that the adapted fleets of transportation companies support a positive development for a carbon-neutral forestry. In respect to the current legal fleet (64, 68 and 76 t), the use of 76 t vehicles increased energy efficiency most effectively, by 50%, compared to 64 t vehicles in the best region. Currently, transportation service providers and their clients are using ERP information to tailor their energy efficiency metric and to implement them locally in the transportation monitoring systems. A three-year sensitivity analysis demonstrates that the technological development of management tools to improve transportation efficiency is essential for larger and heavier vehicle utilization. In the future, the whole wood supply chain from forest to factory will also be optimized with respect to energy efficiency criterion to ensure a low-carbon forest industry.

Highlights

  • The European Commission seeks for efficient solutions to guide the EU countries in the attempt to consume less fossil energy

  • Besides the tests done on the selected mathematical energy-efficiency model [34], this study introduces a novel calculation method that aimed to enable the comparison of environmental efficiency of the wood transportation operational alternatives

  • The environmental emission efficiency of wood transportation was analyzed by assuming the average conditions of distance, weight and efforts in terms of mass moved over the distance

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Summary

Introduction

The European Commission seeks for efficient solutions to guide the EU countries in the attempt to consume less fossil energy. The European Commission emphasizes that the change towards a low-carbon economy is feasible if Forests 2020, 11, 1194; doi:10.3390/f11111194 www.mdpi.com/journal/forests. Several researchers have reported that road freight transportation of the forest industry is a prominent carbon source [6,7,8].

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