Brief description
The GATE project, founded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection (BMWK) aims to sensitize logistics small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to the relevance of emissions reporting. In light of the growing interest in decarbonization and the possible competitive advantage of offering low emission transport services, adequate reporting of emissions is crucial to make actions visible. The project looks into how carriers currently calculate and report emissions, and what data shippers include in their emission models. A consolidated set of tools is to be developed to make methods and decisions relating to the calculation, reporting and dissemination of CO2 emissions, more tangible for SMEs and provides recommendations for action appropriate to the situation.
Project purpose
More than ever, all sectors of the economy have a responsibility to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions quickly and comprehensively. Due to high growth rates and continued dependence on fossil fuels, decarbonization of road freight transport is particularly challenging. Among other reasons, because the market is highly fragmented and 99% of transportation service providers are represented by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with fewer than 50 employees. Studies show that SMEs in particular lack progress around sustainability and hardly have competencies for emissions accounting. In addition, clients of transport services are hardly interested in CO2 data of the operationally active companies. Instead, the clients' emission calculations are based on modeled standard emission factors. This negates relative advantages in terms of environmental friendliness through organizational or technical measures. As sustainability is increasingly becoming a competitive factor, committed SMEs must be able to demonstrate and prove their efforts. The aim of the research project is to raise logistics SMEs' awareness of the relevance of emissions reporting and to enable an uncomplicated introduction to CO2 emissions measurement.
Subjects
Environment, Transport Logistics, Sustainability
Project partners
Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH), Bundesvereinigung Logistik e.V. (BVL), Kühne Logistics University (KLU)