People around the globe — from government leaders to everyday consumers — have become increasingly aware of the negative impacts of climate change over the past several years. This growing awareness has created consumer concern and sparked a wave of eco-conscious regulation, prompting shippers to demonstrate their commitment to sustainability and reduce their carbon footprint.
When shippers decide to clean up their supply chains, they should consider starting with their transportation strategies. Most shippers will find that their current methods are responsible for a slew of unnecessary carbon emissions, and a lot of wasted cash.
Many shippers send shipments out as soon as they are ready — even if that means paying for a trailer that is only partially loaded. This results in a large number of partially loaded trucks moving down the highway, and it leaves the shipper paying to transport air.
“Many people are unaware that the carriers delivering our goods actually travel with significant empty space in their trailers a substantial portion of the time,” Flock Freight CEO Oren Zaslansky said. “Why do trucks burn tons of diesel just to run half-empty? Because companies face significant pressure to ship goods on time and damage-free — regardless of whether they can fill a trailer to its intended capacity. It’s not that uncommon for one shipper to reserve an entire 53-foot trailer — burning hundreds of gallons of diesel — to haul goods that take up a small fraction of that space.”
Fortunately, there is a solution to this problem that allows shippers to save time and reduce their carbon emissions without sacrificing profit.
The solution: Shared Truckload
Flock Freight offers a Shared Truckload service, FlockDirectⓇ, that provides an accurate, reliable and emission-reducing alternative to traditional truckload and less-than-truckload options.
By choosing to ship FlockDirectⓇ, shippers can contribute to a more sustainable supply chain while benefiting from the company’s innovative freight pooling technology.
“Too many shippers are paying to ship air,” Zaslansky said. “It’s one of the key reasons we are building a technology-driven solution that finds and fills empty space in underutilized trailers. When that empty space is utilized, shipping costs and emissions go down, while carrier earnings go up.”
The concept of Shared Truckload is simple: Reduce waste by pooling multiple smaller shipments with similar destinations together in order to fill an entire trailer. The technology that powers Flock’s Shared Truckload solution is far from simple, however.
Flock utilizes proprietary technologies fueled by machine learning to fill trucks and optimize routes for increased efficiency and reduced carbon emissions. This leads to a win-win-win situation. Shippers don’t waste their money moving air, carriers become more productive and the environment is subjected to fewer emissions.
Flock’s impact in 2023
Flock had a banner year in 2023. The company highlighted its wins — including doubling its shipment pooling rate — in its recently released annual impact report.
Flock helped its shippers avoid 46,700 metric tons of carbon emissions, eclipsing its total emissions avoidance for all of 2022 by the end of the third quarter of 2023. That is the equivalent to the carbon emissions produced by 61,206 heavy-duty trucks driving a distance of 550 miles in one day.
Shippers from a wide variety of industries utilized FlockDirectⓇ to move their products via Shared Truckload last year. Companies in the retail and wholesale space boasted the greatest carbon emissions reductions, coming in at a total of 11,417 MT avoided.
Flock doesn’t stop at helping companies optimize their routes and reduce emissions. The company also created an offering — the Frequent Flocker program — that enables shippers to neutralize their remaining emissions via carbon offsets. Through this program, shippers that move 60 total shipments in one calendar month unlock carbon neutrality for all FlockDirectⓇ shipments the following month. This allows shippers to increase the impact of their environmental choices at no additional cost.
At its core, Flock aims to demonstrate that making environmentally friendly choices — like choosing Shared Truckload — doesn’t have to require sacrifice on quality or budget. It is this consistent commitment that drives the company to continue improving year after year.
There is even more in store for Flock Freight customers in 2024.
Click here to download Flock Freight’s 2023 Annual Impact Report.
*The emissions calculation methodology and associated claims have not been validated by an independent third party. Flock has chosen to make the methodology free and publicly available in this white paper.