CIFFA Forwarder Spring 2025

8 THE FORWARDER | SPRING 2025 On the airline side the chief focus in terms of sustainability programs offered to cargo customers has been on sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). Carriers like Lufthansa, Air France KLM and Air Canada offer buy-in schemes that allow clients to select a preferred level of investment. Lufthansa also runs a full charter connection that is 100 percent SAF-powered and has a partnership program with DB Schenker in place that saves 174 tonnes of kerosene a week. Buy-in programs that allow customers to claim green credits is the way to go, both in air cargo and container shipping, as this allows everybody to benefit from the various decarbonisation levers and helps speed up industry-wide use of low emission fuels. Carrier partners that use sustainable fuels make allocations to DHL, which in turn allocates portions to its customers, who can claim reductions for their use. Sustainable fuel for air and ocean transportation is only available at a limited number of ports/airports, said Shawn Boyd, EVP marketing & sales of DHL Global Forwarding Americas. “It doesn’t make sense to ship around sustainable fuel, so it’s really important to scale up,” he says. “It’s irrelevant where SAF is used. All that matters is that GHG emissions are reduced.” Many shipping lines publish their progress in emissions reduction, typically in terms of lower burn of CO 2 per container on an annual basis. Carbon-neutral programs are offered by most large box carriers, but those tend to be offsetting schemes rather than buy-in of alternative fuels. Environmental protection groups like Pacific Environment see little merit in offsetting, arguing that the money spent on these would be better used for direct measures. They convey progress where none has been made, comments Butler. DHL Global Forwarding has decided to phase out its offsetting schemes. “Offsetting has nothing to do with the transportation sector. Our obligation is for transportation to be decarbonised. At some point in time we need sustainable fuel at each and every port,” says Brost. Still, she stresses the need for a pragmatic approach. “What if someone is willing to fund technology, to pay for sustainable technology but it’s not available in their country? We need to be pragmatic, but there need to be guardrails,” she reflects. The trucking sector is further ahead in its use of green technology like electric trucks, but much of this is limited to trials and shorthaul markets like final mile deliveries. Overall, it presents formidable obstacles beyond the lack of charging infrastructure and the higher costs. A highly fragmented market with a plethora of small players who do not have the funds and means for advanced sustainability programs, it needs significant changes across the spectrum – from truck manufacturers to fuel providers and regulators – in order to make sufficient headway to reach emissions targets, a study published by McKinsey last September found. Beyond Ottawa’s Green Freight Program, which aims to help fleets reduce their fuel consumption and GHG emissions through grants for fleet modernization, retrofits and fleet energy assessments, the main focus of the trucking industry has been the SmartWay Transportation Program, a voluntary scheme administered by Environment Canada (and by the US Environmental Protection Agency south of the border) that encourages best practices in supply chains. It is meant to help carriers and shippers benchmark their operations, track fuel consumption and improve their overall performance. SmartWay uses fuel, mileage and payload data of carriers to calculate their emissions rates according to the fleet category. It does not make actual emission rates public but places companies into performance ranges from the top 20 percent to the bottom 20 percent. Some truckers participate in the EcoVadis rating program, which measures the quality of their sustainability management system through the lens of policies, actions and results. Based on this, they receive a medal or badge to show their achievement relative to other assessed companies in the EcoVadis database, but it does not track GHG footprint. Lack of detailed trucker data can often leave a gap in the end-to-end emissions picture. Brost notes that a lot of evidence, including audited documents, is necessary to demonstrate that a mode or leg of a shipment provides the emissions reductions for a shipper to claim. “Unless you can report it, provide something tangible to the customer, you can’t sell it,” she says. For shippers it is vital to get as a close as possible to a complete picture of their supply chain footprint. An Economist Impact survey of the retail sector warns that piecemeal adoption of supply chain measures can be costly and have unforeseen effects. The survey also found that 71 percent of respondents partner with logistics providers to integrate supply chain decarbonization solutions, and 65 percent are willing to pay a premium for logistics services with lower GHG emissions, which points to an incidental benefit of sustainability initiatives between supply chain partners.