Marla Westervelt on how to reduce carbon emissions in the freight sector & drive action to net zero

The Vice President of Policy for the Coalition for Reimagined Mobility (ReMo), Marla Westervelt, discusses key findings and recommendations of their most recent report, “Solving the Global Supply Chain Crisis with Data Sharing”, published in conjunction with the International Transport Forum.

What challenges are you seeing to delivering on net zero in the global supply chain?

Our livelihoods and the global economy depend on functioning and resilient global supply chains. But recent global crises have shown the harmful effects of a freight system that is inefficient and dependent on oil. Current projections show sustained growth in oil use and emissions within the freight sector, putting it on course to become the highest carbon emitting sector in the world by 2050. While the freight system has started investing in a transition to clean fuels, this alone will not deliver sufficient emissions reductions, nor will it happen at the pace defined by the Paris Agreement.

Supply chains have also become more complex over the past decades - a multitude of stakeholders deliver goods through a long and sophisticated network. Many system operators have not yet upgraded their communications tools, instead - manual systems, outdated technology, and siloed methods of communicating are still common when transporting goods. To deliver change at scale, we must be able to rapidly deploy digital solutions that will drive operational efficiencies across the supply chain.

ReMo just launched a new report on reducing carbon emissions in the freight sector – what are its key findings?

In our new report we partnered with International Transport Forum to model how operational efficiencies enabled by standardized freight data exchange will improve freight sector resilience and reduce carbon emissions by 22% by 2050 and eliminate 2.5 billion barrels of oil per year. Standardized freight data exchange is also projected to reduce sea freight emissions by 280 million tons of carbon and road freight emissions by 360 million tons of carbon. The associated decrease of 6% in freight costs per ton kilometre means data sharing also brings substantial cost savings for the sector.

Could you expand on Freight Data Exchange Standards?

The shipment of goods today requires a high degree of coordination. Yet, instead of transitioning fully to the digital age, stakeholders continue to rely on a patchwork of inefficient communication tools and processes. Freight data exchange standards are open or freely available technical specifications that define how to share critical information to seamlessly facilitate freight logistics. Open standards support interoperability across global supply chains and reduce cost barriers, allowing greater participation and data exchange. With globally adopted standards for data exchange, the freight sector would have the digital architecture needed to make digitalization accessible for all operators.

What will enable the uptake of Freight Data Exchange Standards?

Digitalization will not scale without open freight data exchange standards, and open freight data exchange standards will not scale unless policymakers establish a regulatory framework. Governments should adopt legislation and regulation which makes producing and consuming data in conformance with standardized freight data exchanges as a condition to access ports, and ports must implement and enforce these regulations. By requiring the use of freight data exchange standards, ports can communicate near real-time operational data. To facilitate uptake, national authorities should allocate seed funding to ports and industry stakeholders to deploy data exchange standard pilots and projects.

In the absence of strong leadership from policymakers, freight stakeholders will continue to operate in data silos, thus failing to reap the benefits of an efficient, coordinated global system. The world’s largest shippers and supply chain players must work together to embrace digitalization and forge a new path to decarbonization and resilience.

Visit this link to download the full report. For more information about the Coalition for Reimagined Mobility, please visit: https://reimaginedmobility.org/about/.