Innovation is a word that gets thrown around a lot in just about any business – especially the freight forwarding industry! With global warming becoming an increasingly prominent issue we decided that we’d do our bit within the industry and try to come up with a greener solution to freight forwarding, to decrease our carbon footprint!
According to the Guidelines for Measuring and Managing CO2 Emission from Freight Transport Operations:
“Transport (freight and passenger transport) accounts for 20% of all EU GHG emissions. The share of transport emissions is continuously increasing and could reach more than 30% of total EU emissions by 2020 if no action is taken. Emissions from freight transport account for approximately one third of total transport GHG emissions. 93-95% of GHG emissions from transport operations is accounted for by CO2 emissions”
This information means that being greener is something that freight forwarders should care about so we are getting involved with industry trends by having a calculator developed which lets customers see just how much Co2 they are using when importing and exporting their fright. The whole process can be calculated with Airfreight, Road freight and Sea freight being able to be calculated and compared in KG, so customers can decide for themselves which mode of transport is best for their freight.
The tool empowers customers to decide which form of transportation service will be most carbon friendly and benefits those clients who are not just focused on price and want to take into account corporate social responsibility options to align with their own brand values. This is a great opportunity for those of our clients who are environmentally attuned.
For example, when exporting freight that weighs 60 Kg, departing from London City Airport in the UK to China Bay Airport, Sri Lanka the distance is 8661 KM and creates 260 KG of Co2. The same journey via Seafreight is much eco-friendlier coming in at 0.0604 KG of Co2.
The calculator works by using formulas and assumptions, for the calculation of co2 emissions are based on accredited sources such as the greenhouse gas protocol, the clean cargo working group or Defra; and served as a framework for the global transport carbon calculator (gtcc).
Distances are taken from google direction API can actually shipping line and routes may vary dependent on local condition such as weather.
Other calculators we’ve had developed, include a currency converter which stays up to date with the latest conversions (even including Bitcoin!) and a Volumetric weight calculator which converts your freight to its volume in KG.
All of the calculators can be found on our customer tool page along with various PDFs.