Its goal is to tackle freight emissions and accelerate deployment of low carbon transport – helping to meet the science-based target of 48% reduction in absolute emissions between 2010 and 2050.
Founding companies include Nestle, Scania and UPS, along with Route Monkey and the modelling capabilities of the International Transport Forum.
They have pledged to explore the “currently untapped and unmapped potential” for emissions reductions through optimisation and collaboration between road freight transport companies.
“Route Monkey’s optimisation already cuts carbon emissions and overheads by up to 20% for more than 400 fleet customers,” states Colin Ferguson, CEO of Route Monkey.
“By combining selected fleets through this WBCSD initiative, we will from next year enable additional efficiency improvements of 15% with diesel, and up to 60% with alternative fuels,” he adds.
“With a recent International Transport Forum study projecting that freight volumes could quadruple by 2050, the Low Carbon Freight initiative is an important catalyst to spearhead solutions,” comments Alan Gershenhorn, executive vice president and chief commercial officer for UPS.
“UPS is glad to collaborate, innovate and share our learnings.”
WBCSD estimates that the transport sector currently produces around 23% of total energy-related CO2 emissions.
GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions from transport are also among the fastest growing sectors, while emissions from freight transport have been growing even more rapidly than those from passenger cars.
In 2016, the WBCSD will validate the emissions reduction potential for a range of freight solutions and design demonstration projects to test real-world value to companies in 2017—18.