{"id":13922,"date":"2022-06-18T17:17:26","date_gmt":"2022-06-18T15:17:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/advancedfleetmanagementconsulting.com\/eng\/?p=13922"},"modified":"2022-06-18T17:17:26","modified_gmt":"2022-06-18T15:17:26","slug":"fleets-68","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/advancedfleetmanagementconsulting.com\/eng\/2022\/06\/18\/fleets-68\/","title":{"rendered":"Fleets Share Progress, Frustrations on the Race to Cut Carbon Emissions"},"content":{"rendered":"
Photo: GNA\/ACT Expo<\/i><\/p>\n
(L-R) Erik Neandross, Craig Harper, Matthew McLelland, Ari Silkey and Debbie Kalish discuss fleet efforts to reach net zero carbon emissions.<\/b><\/p>\n
Fleets will ultimately bear the brunt of efforts to reduce trucking\u2019s impact on the climate crisis. And at the third and final Roundtable Discussion at the Advanced Clean Transportation Expo on May 11 in Long Beach, California, four fleets discussed how they’ve tackled the sustainability challenge \u2014 and the long road still ahead.<\/p>\n
The moderator was Erik Neandross, CEO of Gladstein, Neandross & Associates, the green-transportation consulting company behind ACT Expo. The panel consisted of:<\/p>\n
Ari Silkey, general manager, North American Surface Transportation, Amazon<\/li>\n
Debbie Kalish, director enterprise sustainability and ESG Initiatives, American Tire Distributors<\/li>\n
Matt McLelland, vice president, sustainability and innovation, Covenant Logistics<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Fleet Sustainability Efforts So Far<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\u201cJ.B. Hunt has always been a very efficient company where efficiency and sustainability live together,\u201d Harper said. \u201cWe\u2019ve always looked for ways to do more work with fewer trucks. And being able to maximize the fuel mileage from every gallon of diesel was critical to that mission.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Building on its early efforts on sustainability, J.B. Hunt moved into intermodal \u2014 a move which Harper said helps reduce a shipment’s\u00a0emissions by 60%.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday, we are looking at technology across the board,\u201d he said. \u201cOur J.B. Hunt 360 digital platform matches loads of customers with the capacity of carriers nationwide and has helped our fleet\u00a0run 6 million fewer empty miles since 2020.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
“And I get both excited and impatient wondering when the OEMs are going to let us get our hands on a new truck.” \u2014 J.B. Hunt’s Craig Harper<\/p>\n
Amazon\u2019s Silkey, saying it was his first time at ACT Expo, called out the \u201cexciting energy\u201d on the show floor.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe strongly got behind our climate pledge in 2019 based on the science we saw emerging to reduce greenhouse gases,\u201d he said. \u201cWe are now focused on the equipment side of that challenge. My role in the middle mile surface transportation group is to work aggressively to reduce our carbon footprint. But there is a lot of complexity to drive the technology we need to scale. We don\u2019t have that figured out yet.\u201d<\/p>\n
American Tire Distributors hired private consultants to assess the company\u2019s carbon footprint and help determine where it needed to be.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first step is making your team accountable for reducing emissions,\u201d she said. \u201cWe want to lower emissions. But this is going to be a big area of change for us. We are now using biofuels, and we are looking at a move to battery-electric vehicles. And I\u2019m excited about hydrogen, but I recognize that we still need the technology to support it as a fuel.\u201d<\/p>\n“You need to be clear on what your stakeholders are looking for. If they say GHG is important \u2014 it is.” \u2014 American Tire Distributors’ Debbie Kalish.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have to keep expectations real and have a glide path to your goal,\u201d Silkey added. \u201cToday, 50% of Amazon\u2019s operations are at zero carbon \u2014 including packaging materials and manufacturing. We were able to do that in eight short years. So there\u2019s work to be done moving toward our 2040 goal, but I like our path.\u201d<\/p>\n
J.B. Hunt set a goal to improve its overall fleet fuel mpg 3%\u00a0from 2019 by 2025 \u2014 and it\u2019s already surpassed that goal, Harper said. Harper said the company has talked about having 25% of its straight truck fleet electric vehicles by 2035.<\/p>\n
“I\u2019m hoping the infrastructure we need, and the new trucks we see at this show, come on line much faster than anticipated,” he said. “There are still a lot of questions out there. But we want to get there as fast as we can.\u201d<\/p>\n
Covenant\u2019s McLelland said he spoke to a group recently and asked everyone in the audience what the working definition of sustainability is \u2014 and no one knew. \u201cSo there is confusion out there,\u201d he said. \u201cBut consulting companies can help you figure out where you are, and where you need to go.\u201d<\/p>\n
Currently, he said, Covenant feels it is premature to set a formal carbon initiative in place. \u201cBut we have goals,\u201d he added. \u201cWe are working on idle reduction and plan to have a certain percentage of autonomous trucks in our fleet that are autonomous in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n\u201cA lot of technology we will need to get to net zero has yet to be developed.” \u2014 Covenant’s Matthew McLelland<\/p>\n
Having a concise and transparent way of reporting your recommendations and goals is critical, ATD\u2019s Kalish added. \u201cYou need to be clear on what your stakeholders are looking for,\u201d she said. \u201cIf they say GHG is important \u2014 it is. And if they say \u2018water,\u2019 you need to realize that may be more important to them than it is to you and keep that in mind.\u201d<\/p>\n
Carbon Offsets and Capital Planning <\/strong><\/h2>\n
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