According to Tyler Cole, FreightWaves’ director of carbon intelligence, the push for carbon neutrality is currently in the hype cycle, in which both enthusiasm and skepticism live side by side. While the market hasn’t yet established rules for how carbon-offset projects might overlap with government involvement, that doesn’t stop private organizations like Convoy from building credible carbon-offset programs for transportation companies to join.
“Convoy has a pretty robust carbon-offset program,” said Cole. “They launched it last year and recently released an update and interview from one of their customers, General Insulation, who’s in an industry of building materials that is very heavily scored by their customer base on carbon levels within their products.”
By partnering with Carbon Fund, Convoy is offering two environmental attributes certificates to customers interested in lowering their emissions. One certificate focuses on deforestation in the Amazon, while the other surrounds truck stop electrification. Since large shippers are looking to their transportation networks to meet these goals, shippers like General Insulation can measure emissions through Convoy’s TMS and choose to purchase carbon offsets to reduce emissions.
“It’s something that companies should consider because it’s needed, especially in freight where we’ve got a long tail of heavy emissions and it’s going to take a while to abate,” said Cole. “Until we get there, you do have some credible means to invest in climate finance.
“The trick is being very careful and intentional about the statements that you make and claim based on your actions. Convoy is taking a very conservative approach and giving customers the right language and allowing them to represent [their actions] properly.”