CIFFA Forwarder Spring 2025

20 THE FORWARDER | SPRING 2025 The following is a contributed article from Pledge, which has partnered with CIFFA and other freight forwarding associations worldwide to help forwarders support shippers with their sustainability goals with its freight emissions measurement tools. Helping logistics service providers and enterprises tackle carbon challenges, meet climate goals, and build a sustainable future—powered by Pledge’s accredited platform. Freight forwarders are facing a number of challenges, including rising fuel costs, increased competition and growing pressure from shippers to reduce their environmental impact. In order to stay ahead of the curve, forwarders need to find new ways to differentiate themselves and create value for their clients. In this blog post, we’ll explain how implementing emissions measurement and other climate initiatives in the correct way will enable you to make sustainability a core revenue centre for your freight forwarding business. The rising demand for sustainable supply chains Shippers are demanding sustainability and looking to work with supply chain partners that share their values. The numbers confirm this — according to the HFW & Panattoni European Logistics & Supply Chain Sustainability Report 2023, 72% of shippers now include sustainability targets as part of their tender process. Additionally, 56% of shippers insist on terminating contracts if ESG targets are not met and 53% have excluded forwarders from tenders for not meeting sustainability criteria. This trend suggests that shippers are increasingly seeing sustainability as a core aspect of their supply chain strategy, with many now refusing to work with forwarders who don’t meet their climate initiatives. This trend can be largely attributed to the growing awareness of the environmental impact of global trade from consumers, meaning that many shippers are starting to improve the end-to-end visibility of their carbon footprint for the first time. But consumers aren’t the only factor pressuring shippers into disclosing their emissions data — an increasing number of regulations that require companies to report their emissions, such as the EU’s CSRD and the UK’s SDR, means businesses now need to meet emissions disclosure requirements. While most of these obligations are yet to come into force, shippers are already aligning themselves with forwarders that can give them visibility of their scope 3 supply chain emissions which fall under emissions reporting regulations. Sustainability as a revenue centre for freight forwarders Shippers are demanding sustainability from forwarders of shippers use sustainability targets as part of their tender process of shippers have excluded forwarders for not meeting sustainability creteria of shippers insist on terminating contracts if ESG targets are not met Source: HFW & Panattoni European Logistics & Supply Chain Sustainabily Report 2023