Industry Leaders Partner To Reduce Freight Emissions

A report released today by the Sustainable Business Council’s (SBC) Freight Group sets out an ambitious but achievable 30-year pathway to progressively decarbonise New Zealand’s freight system.

The Low Carbon Freight Pathway report was launched at an event at Toll Tamaki, in South Auckland, attended by Transport Minister Hon Michael Wood and industry leaders from the transport, freight and business sectors. The Freight Group includes leaders from nine New Zealand companies committed to low carbon freight - Countdown, Fonterra, Lyttelton Port Company, New Zealand Post, Ports of Auckland, Swire Shipping, The Warehouse Group, TIL Logistics Group and Toll.

Host of the event and member of SBC’s Freight Group, Executive General Manager Toll New Zealand, Jon Adams says the companies in the group are already advancing their own decarbonisation pathway and are committed to the country’s zero carbon future by 2050.

"Every year we move around 280 million tonnes of freight across our transport system - through road, rail, coastal shipping, international shipping and air. That’s around 56 tonnes of freight per person in New Zealand. On current projections our freight volumes will increase by 33 percent well before 2050. If we do nothing, emissions will grow by over 37 percent by 2050. We need to act now."

Fellow Group member and sustainability expert, Rosie Mercer, General Manager Sustainability at Ports of Auckand, says that members of the Freight Group partnered to help the wider freight sector get to net zero. "New Zealand’s freight system is vital to our economy and our wellbeing. It is a complex system and we believe that the most effective approach to decarbonisation is leadership with an approach designed and led by, and for, industry. This is the Freight Group’s goal. At the core of this approach is working in partnership with Government to support a planned and staged 30-year decarbonisation programme," she says.

Both acknowledge that decarbonisation across the transport sector is ambitious but achievable.

"The report shows that the most effective pathway is to carefully manage the economic cost of the transition. Our proposed low carbon freight pathway has three interconnected horizons of work, with each horizon progressed concurrently and starting immediately. These horizons have different levels of intensity and time-periods allowing a staged transition. It’s an approach that provides businesses time and greater surety to best manage the transition of their fleet."

The low carbon freight pathway proposes:

- Reducing emissions by optimising the use of existing vehicles;

- Replacing fossil fuels with biofuels; and

- As vehicles are retired, eliminating them by replacing them with zero carbon vehicles.

"Our next step is to to work with the sector and to bring more partners on board the pathway. As more businesses begin the transition, the cost of decarbonisation will fall as we achieve economies of scale," says Mr Adams.

The Low Carbon Freight Pathway report, commissioned by the SBC Freight Group, was developed by Sapere and DETA consultants.

The report, FAQs and background information are online here.

© Scoop Media