World Trade - August 2008 - (Page 51)

GREEN LOGISTICS SmartWay Drives Sustainable Transportation Launched to help shippers and carriers save fuel, the EPA program expands its mandate to the carbon footprint. BY BRITTAIN LADD W ith diesel fuel hovering near $5.00 per gallon, many trucking company executives and shippers ﬁnd themselves in nothing short of a crisis. An emerging organization outside of the transportation and logistics industry called SmartWay, however, is working to provide carriers and shippers with a ﬁghting chance to combat the costs of rising fuel. Created and launched by the Environmental Protection Agency in 2004, and acutely aware that shippers and carriers would be resistant to doing business with a government agency focused on the environment, the EPA wisely marketed SmartWay as a voluntary organization that specialized in saving companies money through a new technique known as sustainable transportation. In order to ensure a successful launch, the EPA spent months consulting with some of the biggest names in big box retailing and trucking establishing goals of the program: • Carriers who agreed to utilize the technology and guidelines set forth by SmartWay could expect to reduce the cost of operating each truck in their ﬂeet by up to $5,000. • SmartWay would work with shippers to quantify the beneﬁts and savings that could be achieved by utilizing SmartWay certified carriers. SmartWay would also act as a champion to get shippers and carriers to embrace sustainable transportation and collaborate on business opportunities. • The environment would benefit as a result of reduced carbon, nitrogen (NOx) and particulate matter entering the atmosphere. • U.S. national energy security would be enhanced as a result of less fuel being required for import. • Membership into the program would require nothing more than carriers and shippers reporting their overall fuel usage and agreeing to submit a three-year plan to reduce their use of fuel and carbon emissions. Many carriers remained skeptical of the technology SmartWay was recommending and the view at the time among most trucking executives and industry experts was that fuel prices were peaking. As one carrier executive noted, “SmartWay had their supporters within the carrier community, but my view at the time was that it didn’t make economic sense to invest money into fuel reduction technology for trucks.” The SmartWay Upgrade Kits being offered to carriers were not cheap. The kits consisted of highly fuel-efﬁcient technologies bundled with emission control devices. When SmartWay ﬁrst unveiled the pricing for the kits in 2004, many carrier executives felt the prices too high as the belief at the time was that fuel prices were in a bubble and would eventually decrease. To ensure that shippers got the message that SmartWay was in it for the long haul, SmartWay partnered with NGO’s who were pressuring companies in the U.S. to pay more attention to their carbon footprint. Shippers began to ask questions about the type of carbon reduction and environmental sustainability programs transporters had in place. Today, SmartWay has over 870 members ranging from carriers, logistics providers, and shippers that are on track to save over $2 billion in fuel while eliminating over 5 million tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere on an annual basis. Carriers such as JB Hunt, Estes Express WWW.WORLDTRADEMAG.COM 51 http://WWW.WORLDTRADEMAG.COM

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of World Trade - August 2008

World Trade - August 2008 Contents Weathering the Storm Helping the World’s Poorest Nations Benefit from Global Trade Supply Chain Watch Tradewinds World Trade’s Top U.S. Trading Partners LTL Shipping ‘On the Fly’ Air Cargo Flies a New Heading Getting More from China Sourcing Why 3PLs Need a Seat at the C-TPAT Table Performance-based Supply Chains Drive Total Lifecycle Value SmartWay Navigates Sustainable Transportation Around the World in 80 Days—Hours—Minutes

World Trade - August 2008

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