After a disappointing Copenhagen summit, decline in public interest and fuel efficiency, the haulage industry needs a lot more attention and action to be able to achieve its target of CO2 reduction.
In the third Freight Transport Association (FTA) Logistics Carbon Reduction Conference in London last week, Professor Alan McKinnon of Heriot-Watt Univeristy said that the ice is still melting and transport emissions are the fastest growing source of CO2, accounting for around 25 percent of the national total, with freight activities constituting a quarter of that.
Haulage industry accounts for about 7% of the national CO2 emissionsHe also said signification action is required by haulage companies to meet the target of reducing 80% emissions by 2050.
Currently, duel-fuel and electric vehicles are promising, however they are both expensive to deploy and there are limits to their scalability.
At Shiply we believe that whilst duel-fuel and electric vehicles can and will help reduce CO2 emitted from individual vehicles, a larger part of the problem remains empty-running vehicles on the road.
Backloading is a simple, cost effective and environment-friendly solution to this issue and needs to be utilised a lot more in the haulage industry and promoted widely to the public.