An examination of a voluntary policy model to effect behavioral change and influence interactions and decision making in the freight sector

Abstract

Freight transportation is essential to maintaining commerce and economies in the United States and globally. However, freight transportation is known to have significant environmental and public health impacts. Harmful emissions of carbon dioxide, methane, hydrofluorocarbons, and black carbon increase the risk of global climate change. Emissions of nitrogen oxides and particulate matter contribute to serious public health risks including increased incidences of premature death, and increased severity of respiratory and cardiovascular illness. As trade is increasingly globalized and economies expand, harmful air emissions from goods movement are projected to increase at faster rates than all other sources of transport-related emissions. While mandatory rules such as advanced vehicle emission and fuel quality standards reduce emissions from new vehicles, the vast legacy fleet of heavy duty diesel vehicles present a challenge for policy makers around the world. This paper examines how a voluntary policy model, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s SmartWay Transport Partnership, fosters behavior change, facilitates strategic interactions and enables more informed decision-making in the freight sector to improve performance and reduce emissions. The effectiveness of this innovative model has generated international interest and led to program replication in other countries.

Decarbonizing intraregional freight systems with a focus on modal shift

“…There are also several important barriers to the adoption of efficient technologies, such as many users wanting a payback of less than two years, lack of access to high upfront capital, lack of information; and doubt regarding the reliability and safety of new technologies [3, 45,46]. For example, the uncertainty in exploring new technology options has been a market barrier for small fleet shippers (fleet size <20) [46], which make up over 97% of all US trucking fleets [47].…”

“…Although not a primary concern for most shippers [111], there is increasing pressure on firms to reduce the environmental footprint, including CO 2 emissions, of their logistics supply chains. Programs such as Smart-Way by the US Environmental Protection Agency and other international green freight programs [112] aim to make environmental performance more transparent and to ease the integration of environmental impacts into firms' decision-making [46].…”

A critical review on the key issues and optimization of agricultural residue transportation

“…Nevertheless, the variability of same type of vehicle cannot be underestimated. Taking truck transportation as an example, one of the popular ways to calculate the emissions for truck transportation in the USA is via US.EPA's Smartway program [150,151], which presents information on emission factors for dominant brands of trucks. Researches of AR supply chain with life cycle assessment always reported the parameters of truck fuel consumption for transportation.…”

Do voluntary environmental programs matter? Evidence from the EPA SmartWay program

“…1 Freight transportation is one of the largest contributors of corporate GHG emissions, accounting for an estimated 16% overall (Mathers et al, 2019). 2 Commercial truck transportation is the single largest contributor of GHG emissions within the freight transportation industry (Bynum et al, 2018). 3 Thus, it is important to design effective environmental management (EM) regulations and policies to encourage buyers and sellers of truck transportation services to reduce GHG emissions (Ellram & Murfield, 2017).…”