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Title:

The Role and Potential of Freight Transportation Sourcing in Achieving Transport Sustainability

Accession Number:

01555236

Record Type:

Component

Availability:

Transportation Research Board Business Office

500 Fifth Street, NW
Washington, DC 20001 United States

Abstract:

Climate change is a serious global environmental threat that is a direct consequence of elevated greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations in the atmosphere. Transportation, and road transportation in particular, relies heavily on the consumption of fossil fuels, and contributes to rising levels of GHG emissions. Freight shippers have a great influence on the GHG emissions through their transportation sourcing and supplier management practices. When shippers utilize sustainability in their truck carrier selection decisions, and reward and educate in their supplier relationships, carriers have an incentive to be greener. Insights on transportation sourcing and supplier management practices affecting sustainability were developed from an online survey of Canadian shippers completed in early 2014. The survey identified the popularity of weak versus strong sustainable carrier sourcing practices. The authors find that carrier sourcing and carrier supplier management are some of the least utilized “best practice” of shippers but this strategy has high potential to reduce GHG emissions. An analysis of the motivations and barriers for adopting more sustainable carrier sourcing practices indicates that the motivation of firms to include sustainability in their sourcing decision is increasing. The major barriers to incorporating sustainability in carrier sourcing are profit impact and effective GHG footprint measurement but third party carbon measurement programs such as SmartWay and those offered by third party logistics suppliers are reducing these barriers. These findings are useful to shippers seeking to incorporate sustainability in their sourcing decisions, to carriers who seek to differentiate their product in the “green” dimension and the public sector, which can influence the motivations and barriers.

Supplemental Notes:

This paper was sponsored by TRB committee AT060 Trucking Industry Research.

Monograph Accession #:

01550057

Report/Paper Numbers:

15-0578

Language:

English

Corporate Authors:

Transportation Research Board

500 Fifth Street, NW
Washington, DC 20001 United States

Authors:

Chow, Garland

Pagination:

16p

Publication Date:

2015

Conference:

Transportation Research Board 94th Annual Meeting

Location: Washington DC, United States
Date: 2015-1-11 to 2015-1-15
Sponsors: Transportation Research Board

Media Type:

Digital/other

Features:

Figures; References; Tables

Subject Areas:

Administration and Management; Environment; Freight Transportation; I10: Economics and Administration; I15: Environment

Source Data:

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2015 Paper #15-0578

Files:

TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Created Date:

Dec 30 2014 12:18PM