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Data data data – The key for logistics and transportation businesses to meet their sustainability goals in 2024

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By Serge Schamschula, Head of Ecosystem at Transporeon, A Trimble Company

It is fair to say that the EU has certainly been in full ‘green mode’ in recent years, with the aim to reduce net greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55% by 2030. And, in its bid to meet this ambitious, long-term environmental and climate goal, they have published a raft of sustainability regulations and guidance.

An example of one of these regulations affecting the logistics and transportation sectors is the Greening Freight Package, launched in June 2023. This package contains a number of measures – including the CountEmissions EU chapter, which creates a common methodology for measuring door-to-door greenhouse gas emissions and, in turn, requires an enhanced focus on sustainability reporting. For shippers, carriers and logistics service providers alike, compliance requires three things – data, data and yet more data. Serge Schamschula, Head of Ecosystem at Transporeon (A Trimble Company) explores this further.

What does this mean for the logistics industry?

The EU is aiming to enhance supply chain transparency and equip all stakeholders with sustainability data to factor into their decision-making processes. When it comes to sustainability, being data-driven is crucial. For instance, large investments within hydrogen, autonomous vehicles and exhaust heat recovery are just three decarbonisation measures that we see touted as ‘innovative’ and ‘industry-leading’. But these have limited tangible impact on lowering emissions – at least in the short term.

When it comes to sustainability, it’s crucial to look below the surface. Headline-grabbing decarbonisation measures aren’t always the most effective. And the only way to sort the wheat from the chaff is through accurate, in-depth data and reporting.

Scope one, two and three emissions reporting

The Greenhouse Gas Protocol (a global, standardised framework) stipulates that emissions fall into three categories – scope one, two and three.

Scope one emissions originate from a company’s owned assets, like the fossil fuels burned by their own fleet of trucks. Scope two includes indirect emissions from purchased energy generated offsite, like the electricity used to charge electric vehicles. Lastly, scope three includes all other indirect emissions from a company’s upstream and downstream value chain. It’s by far the largest source of emissions for most organisations – more than 70% of their entire footprint on average. For instance, the services of a carrier or logistics service provider would fall under their clients’ scope three emissions.

Until now, most EU companies have only reported on scope one and two – just a third measure their scope three emissions. But, due to the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, this is changing in the 2024 financial year. Under the proposed value chain sustainability reporting, companies will also be required to report on scope three, as well as their reduction targets and progress for reports published in 2025.

What does this mean for shippers, carriers and logistics service providers?

As scope three reporting is due to become the norm, we’ll likely see end-user customers pressuring shippers to decarbonise. Why? Customers will want to reduce their own scope three emissions, while preserving their reputations among increasingly environmentally savvy consumers.

Similarly, the services of carriers and logistics service providers are often a considerable source of scope three emissions for shippers. Since they’ll also be under more pressure to account for and reduce their emissions, they too will prioritise sustainability by voting with their wallets. This could mean contracting carriers based on their sustainability practices, offering longer freight contracts to carriers with lower carbon emissions or even paying a premium for lower carbon transport.

All this demonstrates that implementing a robust decarbonisation plan and accurate process for reporting emissions isn’t just the ecologically sound path. It makes smart business sense.

Reducing emissions – two parallel paths

In Europe, the vast majority of freight is still transported by road. When it comes to road freight, there are several routes to decarbonisation. One route is to improve the efficiency of vehicles and another is to boost the efficiency of transport logistics operations.

Obviously, a combination of both is needed for successful long-term decarbonisation. But EV and hydrogen technologies are still relatively immature, and require substantial infrastructure investment. Meanwhile, digital solutions to drive efficiency can be implemented now at marginal cost and with hardly any upfront investment. So, it makes sense for shippers and carriers to first ensure their operations are as efficient as possible. This means reducing empty mileage, tackling unnecessary dwell times and optimising operations in the yard – that integral inflexion point between the road and the warehouse. And of course, shippers and carriers should look at how to combine multiple transport modes intelligently to minimise carbon emissions.

How can companies ensure they’re making the right decisions?

To ensure companies are making smart decisions on decarbonisation – and to level up its reporting capabilities – shippers, carriers and logistics service providers will need to rely on technology. Although, this seems to be a big leap for many businesses. Transporeon’s 2024 Transportation Pulse Report revealed that 60% of carriers and shippers named AI as their top concern shaping supply chain management in the next five years.

To ensure accuracy, companies will need to rely on sensor-based (mostly telematics) data – also known as primary data. In recent years, the industry precisely measured 20% of its emissions – scope one and two – using this kind of sensor data. But it falls short on calculating scope three – the remaining 80% – with the same level of precision. With the automation and data analytics capabilities of a smart transportation management platform, companies should be able to solve this problem.

Given the abundance of data points involved in sustainability reporting, companies can further enhance accuracy and minimise employee workload by automating workflows. Similarly, sophisticated data analytics capabilities enable companies to capture real-time insights and make informed decisions throughout the process of managing transportation logistics.

But the road to decarbonisation is a long one, and there’s only so far that companies can travel alone. Adopting a ‘network’ approach is key, as it enables connected information flow between otherwise disparate companies and ensures that emissions aren’t measured in isolation from other factors. It also enables shippers, carriers and logistics service providers to work together to reduce unnecessary driving time by streamlining processes like freight sourcing, transport execution, dock scheduling, and freight matching. As the saying goes, if you want to go far, go together.

Photo by Mads Eneqvist on Unsplash

Why Europe’s driver shortage isn’t just a personnel problem 

 960 640 Stuart O'Brien
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By Stephan Sieber, CEO, Transporeon

It’s no secret that global supply chain disruption has dominated headlines since mid-2020. And, over the past three years, the continuing aftershocks of the COVID pandemic, combined with geopolitical factors and an economic downturn, have caused significant upheaval for shippers, cargo receivers, service providers, brokers, freight forwarders, carriers – and of course consumers.

Today, driver shortages in the road freight sector are threatening to cause further disruption. Catalysed by initial pandemic downtime – which saw many drivers leave the industry, take early retirement or extended sick leave – driver shortages are now a significant strain on supply chains. Especially given rising demand for road freight transportation.

A recent report by the world road transport body IRU revealed that there could be an eye watering two million unfilled driving positions in Europe by 2026 (already now there are around half a million unfilled positions in Europe).

In the UK, a drop in migration from Central and Eastern Europe caused by Brexit has further highlighted driver shortages where, according to the French transportation union FO Transports, the number of driving vacancies in France could currently be as high as 50,000. The situation is even worse in neighbouring countries where there are currently around 80,000 vacant driving positions in both Germany and Poland (IRU).

Transforming the ‘Great Retirement’ into greater opportunities

With a global recession looming, it’s widely believed that we’ll soon see an influx of candidates onto the job market. Though this may ease personnel shortages in some sectors, it’s unlikely to solve road freight driver shortages.

The primary reasons for this are demographic shifts leading to the ‘Great Retirement’. The same IRU report found that 30% of drivers are planning to retire by 2026 – outstripping any potential recession-related increases in driver availability. So, it’s clear that simply poaching drivers from elsewhere in the industry isn’t a long-term solution for companies.

The IRU also found that young people are joining the driver community in the road freight industry at a rate between four and seven times lower than drivers are retiring – with the average age for European drivers now over 50 years old.

Twentieth-century approaches won’t solve a twenty-first-century problem

The bottom line is that the European driver shortage is not just a personnel problem. Dwindling driver numbers would not present such a challenge if transport operations were smarter and more efficient. According to scientists at the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics, increasing the efficiency of US drivers by just 18 more minutes of active driving time per day could solve the country’s driver shortage. This claim was based on research in the US but pointed out that the same principle is likely to apply in Europe.

There’s a multitude of ways that companies can look to boost efficiency. But to do so, they must first understand where there’s room for improvement. More are now turning to solutions that offer real-time insights. This helps companies to uncover previously hidden inefficiencies (like empty runs and excessive waiting times in yards) and improve visibility by tracing deliveries.

Within the logistics industry, another trend we’re seeing is Autonomous Case-handling Robot systems (ACR) to reduce labour needs. Self-driving trucks are still a long way off in logistics transportation, but it is possible to make significant efficiencies within warehouses in loading and unloading processes, as well as automating time slot and yard management processes. But by implementing smart software, businesses can start to look to reduce waiting times for drivers from hours to minutes.

Conclusion

Ultimately though, enhancing the effectiveness of transport logistics depends on increasing collaboration between all participants, rather than companies simply working to optimise its own performance – as is currently often the case. Indeed, a recent survey of international supply chain experts revealed that the vast majority rate ‘increased collaboration between supply chain partners’ as both ‘highly probable’ and ‘highly desirable’ in the run-up to 2025.

When working collaboratively as part of a wider network, rather than in isolation, organisations can significantly streamline key processes such as freight sourcing, transport execution, dock scheduling, freight matching, payment and settlement.

Solving the UK and Europe’s road freight driver shortage can’t be done overnight. And, moving forward, companies should view this as an operational matter, rather than simply an HR or personnel problem. The solution lies in adopting a network approach and collaborative solutions that focus on finding new efficiencies.

With the unique approach of combining automation, real-time insight, and collaboration, a transportation management platform can alleviate the driver shortage, reducing empty miles, eliminating unnecessary dwell times and optimising yard operations – the integral intersection between the road and the warehouse.

How retail fleet managers can improve sustainability and profitability in home delivery 

 1024 601 Stuart O'Brien
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Today, home delivery and sustainability are coming together in consumers’ minds. Descartes recently conducted a comprehensive study to help retailers understand not only how this convergence is changing consumer home delivery preferences; but also how retailers can take advantage of these evolving preferences to help themselves and the environment. 

The good news is that consumers are becoming more flexible about their delivery choices. They want retailers to provide sustainable delivery options; and favour retailers that are focused on sustainability. 

The even better news is that most of the sustainable delivery options come at a lower cost for retailers to operationalise, compared with traditional deliveries. This presents a strong opportunity for retailers to create more customer loyalty and to reduce delivery costs, while helping the environment. Chris Jones, EVP, Descartes explains and reveals key findings from Descartes’ recent research….

The demand for “eco-friendly” home delivery is strong

The study surveyed 8,013 consumers from nine countries in Europe, the US and Canada. It pointed to a number of findings that indicate that many consumers care about the environment and what retailers do about it does impact their buying decisions. The last finding in the list below is a significant one for retailers because it helps to drive the first three metrics:

  • 45% said that helping the environment is quite/very important in their daily lives
  • 39% said that they always/regularly make purchasing decisions based upon the environmental impact of a company or a product
  • 40% would buy more from grocers who demonstrated that their supply chains were more sustainable than the competition
  • 50% were quite/very interested in environmentally friendly home delivery options.

Three sustainable delivery options were highly appealing to consumers

Respondents were asked what sustainable delivery options were most important to them. The following findings point to the three most appealing sustainable delivery options for consumers—all of which can reduce costs for retailers:

  • 50% thought the ability to combine orders to have them arrive all at once was quite/very important
  • 48% said that they were quite/very interested in having retailers recommend the most environmentally friendly delivery option
  • 38% were quite/very willing to wait longer for deliveries to make them more environmentally friendly.

Making sustainable delivery happen

Achieving these three sustainable delivery options allows retailers to better consolidate deliveries and increase delivery density. The key to leveraging eco-friendly delivery options, though, is to understand which are more sustainable, and present them to customers before they make a delivery decision.

Specialised delivery appointment scheduling tools can help here, and provide retailers the capabilities to highlight the most environmentally friendly delivery options to their shoppers – for example, options for dates and times that are ecofriendly across different service levels, including free standard delivery, premium delivery or same day delivery. These intelligent scheduling tools can dynamically offer services that combine deliveries too – and they can present options that extend the delivery time (e.g. slow down the delivery) to create more environmentally delivery plans. These options combine to help create more efficient and profitable delivery operations for retailers, and reduce their carbon footprint.

Combining deliveries 

For retailers such as grocers and broadline sellers whose customers make frequent purchases, combining orders provides an excellent opportunity to minimise the number of deliveries. Retailers can provide either a fixed delivery on a regular basis (e.g. Amazon Prime Day) or dynamically choose the day based upon existing orders. Strong delivery appointment scheduling tools can identify when customers have existing orders and, during the ordering process for additional purchases, determine if it is possible to add new orders to the existing delivery or dynamically suggest a new delivery time. For customers on a fixed delivery schedule, this techology can assign new orders to the fixed time as long as the solution determines that it is feasible to add them to the delivery.

Scoring eco-delivery options 

For retailers who want to provide customers with more dynamic eco-friendly delivery options, intelligent delivery appointment scheduling tools can score options based upon the factors that determine carbon footprint. This is usually possible to achieve because the delivery appointment scheduling process dynamically creates delivery options for each order as customers are making their purchases. With today’s modern tools they can typically score options to show which ones have the shortest travel distance/lowest mileage and enable retailers to determine which options they want to present to the customer. Eco-deliveries can be highlighted with supplemental explanation (e.g. “Help us reduce miles and improve the environment”) to educate the customer. Anecdotally, some organisations employing this technique have seen mileage reductions of up to 20% for eco-deliveries versus non-eco-friendly delivery options.

Lengthening lead times for deliveries

Similar to eco-deliveries, effective delivery appointment scheduling tools can score delivery options over a time horizon. This provides retailers the insight to understand what longer lead-time options are more environmentally friendly and present them to the customer during the buying process.

Additional performance and sustainability improvement tactics

Virtually any improvement in home delivery performance results in a lower carbon footprint and greater sustainability. While scheduling tools offer retailers tangible benefits, there are several other tactics that retailers can deploy to improve home delivery performance and make it more sustainable.

  1. Route optimisation that helps to maximise fleet productivity, which results in less fuel consumed, fewer vehicles used and lower vehicle maintenance.
  2. Advanced road network modeling that helps to ensure compliance with state and local government restrictions in congested areas, which reduces traffic and related pollution.
  3. Route orchestration to better coordinate multiple resources during delivery execution, which reduces fuel consumed and the number of vehicles deployed and maintained. AI and machine learning capabilities improves route planning accuracy and addresses route execution exceptions to make delivery fleets more productive, reduce fuel consumed and decrease the number of vehicles deployed and maintained.
  4. Mobile applications that eliminate paper-based delivery documentation and IoT-based telematics that minimize excessive idle time and help contain aggressive driving traits that consume additional fuel and increase vehicle maintenance.
  5. GPS-based fleet tracking, that reduces vehicle turnaround and idle time at distribution centers and depots, can be used.
  6. Customer delivery notifications can help to decrease the number of failed deliveries and the need to reschedule.

Conclusion

Sustainability is no longer a challenge. It is an opportunity. For retailers to continue to succeeding in this current challenging business environement, while meeting consumers’ expectations, they will need to consider what their shoppers want in terms of delivery options against agains sustainability requirements.

Today, meeting these needs is not only good business sense – investors want it, consumers want it, and governmental legislation across the planet is driving and demanding it too. By investing in technologies that enable effective transport routing, scheduling and delivery resourcing, retailers will be able to meet the various needs of their shoppers, the environment, and the market that they operate it.

HGV driver the most in-demand role in transport and logistics

 960 640 Stuart O'Brien
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HGV driver and supply chain manager roles are most the most in-demand jobs in logistics, with a respective 7,200 and 4,831 available job postings.

At the end of September, there were 52,000 vacancies within the industry as a whole, analysis of Reed & Total Jobs vacancy postings and Road Haulage Association data carried out by packaging retailer RAJA UK, with the top roles identified as:-

Job title Average Salary Vacancies Job requirements
HGV driver £32,000 7,200 –        A full, clean driving licence

–        Take one of the five vocational qualifications

–        Pass the Driver Certificate of Professional Competence (CPC) tests
Warehouse operative   £21,293 1,461 –        Ability to operate hand tools such as nail guns

–        Good physical strength, fitness and dexterity

–        Computer literacy

–        Ability to operate a forklift
Supply chain manager   £42,500 4,831 –        A foundation degree in a relevant subject or qualifications from industry-led organisations.
Transportation Planner £30,178 143 –        A degree in a relevant subject or get a Transportation Planning Technician Apprenticeship.

–        To progress, you may need to get a postgraduate qualification in transport planning.
Purchasing manager £45,231 1,978 –        A degree with business influence.

–        Be a member of the Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply (CIPS) or be working towards becoming one.
Distribution manager £44,305 3,400 –        A degree with a logistics or business influence.

–        Professional certification from CIPS, Institute of Operation Management (IOMS) or the Institute of Leadership and Management (ILM).
Sourcing specialist £48,9717 1,308 –        Bachelor’s degree.

–        CIPS qualified.

–        Experience in procurement and supply chain services or domestic/international transportation.

–        A full driving licence.

–        Ability to travel both in the UK and abroad.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

RAJA’s transport manager Nigel Smyth said: “When hiring for the RAJA fleet, we wanted more than someone with excellent driving skills. We wanted passionate people who could provide both road safety and a superb customer delivery experience to fit in with the RAJA ethos of ‘do the right thing’. Our drivers are inclusive members of the wider team and need to be able to work as a group to ensure our high customer service levels are always met.

“The recruitment success of our current fleet was mainly down to word of mouth. Once we had onboarded a few drivers, the rest quickly followed. Our current drivers work exceptionally well as a team and have input in developing our fleet project to expand further in 2022.”