2Sustain

The World Economic Forum’s Logistics & Transport Industry Group, supported by Accenture, has taken a significant environmental step by agreeing to standard guidelines for calculating consignment-level carbon emissions from logistics and shipping operations.

These new guidelines for consignment-level emissions reporting will enable logistics and transport companies to:

• Assess the carbon intensity of their operations

• Define carbon reduction strategies leading to energy efficiency gains and cost reductions

• Provide their customers with information on the carbon associated with shipping their products

• Enable product lifecycle emissions assessments and product carbon labeling

And, ultimately, that will drive carbon efficiency in the freight and logistics sector –which in turn, will have a significant impact on global supply chains.

According to Jonathan Wright, senior executive in Accenture’s Supply Chain Management practice, the new carbon measurement and reporting approach will enable the logistics industry to better meet customer demands.

“Logistics and transportation providers face growing demand from their retail and manufacturing customers to report the carbon emissions generated by the shipping and handling of products,” he says. “These guidelines will help them work towards providing product-level carbon footprint information for their customers.”

In addition, a common set of consistent standards will help companies compete –and differentiate themselves –on sustainability issues.

The guidelines include principles for defining the scope of emissions to report and how these emissions should be allocated in cases such as shared transport or backhaul.

Detailed background information about the new guidelines is available here.

Methodology is available here.