News / Online freight booking sites to help clients go green, adding a carbon calculator

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Shippers with sustainability and environmental targets will soon be able to calculate transport emissions from an increasing number of freight quotation and booking platforms.

Freightos announced today that every shipping service it offers will now have a CO₂ footprint estimation.

It is also offering a “suite of free CO₂ calculation tools, enabling customers or third-parties to optimise route and mode selection, with live international CO₂ footprint calculations”, it said.

As an example, it pointed to a 200kg shipment from Shanghai to London: its transport would produce 1.1 tonnes of CO2 by air, but just 0.02 tonnes by ocean.

And Freightos is not alone in its thinking. Agree Freight will next year launch routemar.com and useforward.com and will add a carbon calculator to these platforms.

Its current platform, Agree Freight, and soon-to-be-launched nvo2nvo2 will not, said founder Nick Coverdale, as they offer a single mode of transport. He added that such a tool had not yet been in demand among his customers.

“Nobody asks for it in Asia. Price is the first, and near-on only, consideration,” he said.

DHL Global Forwarding, which recently launched its own online freight and quote booking platform, said it offered a carbon calculator on its DHL Interactive (DHLi) site for existing customers.

“The online freight quotation & booking service is connected to DHLi, where they can book, track and report on their shipments anywhere and anytime,” said COO Tobias Meyer.

“From DHLi, the customers can generate a carbon footprint report that calculates CO₂ emissions based on the EN 16258 and French Decree (no 2011:1336) with up to 12 months of shipment history.”

Freightos said it was offering the tool in line with its efforts to give the logistics industry greater transparency.

“Large shippers and logistics companies are introducing sustainability targets, but transport is often the most opaque part of global supply chains,” said Zvi Schreiber, CEO.

“We’re proud to support sustainability targets and bolster environmental awareness and accountability in industry by providing the necessary tools for our customers to manage their carbon footprint. After all, what good is transparency if you can’t see through the smog?”

Glen Schwaber, co-founder of ICV, a Freightos portfolio company and tech start-up focused on sustainability, added: “Based on OECD data, international trade-related freight transport accounts for a full 30% of all transport-related CO₂ emissions from fuel combustion and more than 7% of global emissions.

“Accurate, transparent calculations of carbon footprint within supply chain and logistics is an increasingly critical element for companies with aggressive sustainability goals.”

Online quote and booking platforms are becoming increasingly prevalent. Nvo2nvo2, to be launched after the Chinese new year, will be an instant booking platform for sailings covering FCL and LCLs, from gate-in to gate-out or to container freight stations. It is designed for NVOs to sell to other forwarders and will start with the transpacific.

“Having slimmed down the big data, we can switch on the sailings of 365 container carriers and then match the relevant departures to an NVO selling rates in a matter of minutes and start any market an NVO wants, like Rotterdam to Dubai or Long Beach to Sydney,” said Mr Coverdale.

Routemar, meanwhile, will be a fully automated operation, moving FCLs around Europe, offering on-demand pricing door-to-door. Carriers, terminals, truckers, barge and rail operators will all be linked within the system, which will be operated on blockchain.

Useforward will launch in late summer, offering shippers instant pricing booking.