Is There Progress towards Environmental Sustainability among Road Haulage Companies?

Markus Pöllänen,Erika Kallionpää,Heikki Liimatainen,Timo Liljamo

doi:10.3390/su13115845

Abstract

Road freight transport contributes to a significant and growing share of greenhouse gas emissions. This study analyses the development of environmental practices and awareness of road freight hauliers and whether hauliers witness an interest from their shippers towards energy efficiency. Results of an original survey (N = 256) conducted in 2019 among Finnish hauliers are presented and compared with those from a similar survey completed in 2011 (N = 295). The results highlight the lack of improvement in hauliers’ environmental practices during a decade when ambitious climate goals were set. Even though hauliers share the view that emissions from road freight transport must be reduced in future, their environmental practices did not change much during the 2010s. The hauliers rarely perceive an interest from their shippers towards energy efficiency. The results show that hauliers should be supported and encouraged to pursue more environmentally aware practices. Shippers in the supply chain should be a driver, not an obstacle, to increasing road hauliers’ sustainability. There should be more communication between hauliers and supply chain actors, and environmental sustainability should gain more importance when selecting carriers.

Highlights

Transport is the single largest source of environmental hazards in logistics [1], and road transport is the backbone of logistics operations; the supply chain (SC) community needs to address the sustainability issues of transport, even if logistics activities and road freight especially are outsourced to a high degree
A clear majority (79%) of the survey respondents agreed with the statement that environmental damage and emissions from road freight transport must be reduced into the future
Even though the need for reducing emissions is recognised, the hauliers have not become more active in many of their practices related to energy efficiency, e.g., setting targets for reducing fuel consumption and monitoring the consumption

Summary

Introduction

Environmental sustainability plays a significant role in future road freight transport. Transport is the single largest source of environmental hazards in logistics [1], and road transport is the backbone of logistics operations; the supply chain (SC) community needs to address the sustainability issues of transport, even if logistics activities and road freight especially are outsourced to a high degree. Global CO2 emissions from transport represent 18% of human-made emissions [2]. Road freight transport currently accounts for approximately one quarter of CO2 emissions from transport, but this share is expected to increase significantly as emissions from road freight transport are expected to grow, despite large improvements in energy efficiency [2,3,4]. The European Green Deal aims to achieve a 90% reduction in transport greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 [5]

Objectives

Results

Conclusion