The reservation program will use the hub-to-hub model. Convoy’s vast carrier network of small fleets and owner-operators will gain access to lucrative opportunities to deliver customer loads to the pick up hub in Texas, and then V.A.S.’ autonomous fleet will execute the long-haul to the next hub. A carrier in Convoy’s network would then deliver the load to its final destination. 

We are excited to add Convoy to our growing list of early reservation customers and work together to bring all the benefits of autonomous trucking technology to shippers on the Convoy network. This collaboration underlines the growing interest in autonomous technology as the industry looks for ways to increase freight capacity, improve efficiency and safety.”

Nils Jaeger, President of Volvo Autonomous Solutions.

Under the hub-to-hub model, autonomous trucks will operate on highways, providing continuous service between transfer hubs throughout the day and night. By improving the safety and efficiency of freight corridors, autonomous trucks will contribute to the growth of freight volume, increasing demand for truck drivers to deliver goods from the transfer hubs to their final destinations. This approach enhances the work-life balance of professional truck drivers by enabling local drivers to transition into short-haul jobs, granting them more time at home and improving their overall quality of life.

“We have great confidence in the transformative power of autonomous trucking technology to help tackle industry challenges,” stated Brooks McMahon, Chief Business Development Officer at Convoy. “By leveraging these trucks for highway segments and strategically scheduling loads during off-peak hours, we can minimize emissions, optimize fuel efficiency, and enhance the well-being of drivers. We’re particularly excited about how this model enhances the quality of life for small to midsize carriers who will support either leg of the transportation, but will be able to remain local more often and spend more time with their families. We are excited to partner with Volvo Autonomous Solutions in charting this new course and unlocking the full potential of autonomous trucks.”

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Tackling the trucking industry’s carbon emissions

The transportation sector in the United States is responsible for emitting the largest amount of human-generated greenhouse gas, accounting for 27% of our nation’s total carbon footprint. To mitigate the effects of climate change, it’s crucial for companies within the transportation industry to track, report on, and reduce their carbon emissions. 

As the business landscape and consumer expectations continue to evolve, and as climate-related regulations increase, these companies face greater pressure to be accountable for their carbon emissions. For example, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is expected to introduce more rigorous disclosure requirements related to climate change in 2024. As a result, shippers need to find solutions that enable accurate and reliable emissions reporting from their freight providers.

One of the biggest challenges in measuring and reporting emissions data in logistics is the need for a universal methodology to track the climate impacts across modes of transport. The Global Logistics Emissions Council (GLEC) Framework, developed by the Smart Freight Center, addresses this problem with a consistent calculation method for companies to determine the carbon footprint of their freight transportation in global supply chains. As one of four GLEC-accredited logistics companies worldwide, Convoy now offers a solution that shippers can trust with accurate and transparent carbon emissions data.

With the Emission Insights Dashboard, shippers can quickly measure and report on their Scope 3 carbon footprint for shipments run through Convoy’s network, leveraging the data to make informed decisions to reduce emissions.

Granular visibility into carbon emissions on Convoy loads

The dashboard, which can be accessed through Convoy’s online shipper platform, provides granular, on-demand visibility into emissions reports, including total carbon emissions and intensity, available by the load. With the ability to filter by program type, date, and loading type, shippers can quickly understand where to focus their efforts on reducing emissions.

The dashboard also offers downloadable data sets so companies can easily share their Scope 3 carbon emissions data with stakeholders. This data is collected through Convoy’s app that carriers use 97% of the time at every step of the job.

From estimates and disclosure to action

To prepare for the more stringent climate disclosure requirements proposed by the SEC, shippers need to transition from manual data gathering and estimations of their Scope 3 carbon footprint to tools that efficiently and accurately provide this data.

The Emission Insights Dashboard provides this through GLEC-accredited reports that help shippers understand the impact of their operations and take action to reduce their carbon footprint. Starting today, all Convoy customers can access the dashboard by signing into their online shipper platform account.

If you’re interested in learning how the Emission Insights Dashboard can help your company reduce emissions and help mitigate the effects of climate change, drop us a line or contact your account manager.

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The 2022 SEAL Business Sustainability Award winners have been announced and, for the second year in a row, Convoy has received the Sustainable Service Award, recognizing innovative services that set a new standard for sustainability. 

SEAL (Sustainability, Environmental Achievement & Leadership) Awards is an environmental advocacy organization that honors leadership through business sustainability awards & environmental journalism awards, while funding research and pursuing environmental impact campaigns.

The organization’s Business Sustainability Award honors companies committed to driving true progress towards a lasting, healthy planet. Convoy was recognized for helping shippers and carriers reduce empty miles and unnecessary carbon emissions from polluting the planet.

“Companies have a unique opportunity and responsibility to drive environmental progress where politics cannot. Our corporate sustainability awards celebrate organizations that embrace the responsibility to effect positive change,” commented Matt Harney, SEAL Awards’ Founder. “Most business sustainability initiatives are unglamorous and invisible to the general public despite having significant positive impacts – we hope our awards bring some much-needed recognition to both the activities and the leaders behind them.”

According to Dan Lewis, Convoy’s CEO and co-founder, reducing the number of empty miles driven with each job simultaneously reduces carbon emissions, the cost of shipping, and the driver’s time on the road and away from their family. Waste reduction for people and the planet is critical to sustainability and is at the core of everything we do at Convoy.

Additional 2022 SEAL Sustainability Award honorees included global brands and high-growth startups, including Disneyland, General Electric, GM, Microsoft, Oracle, Procter & Gamble, Samsung, AiDash, Flock Freight, Optoro and PATH.

Learn more about Convoy’s sustainability efforts and mission.

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There’s a misperception that truck drivers don’t care about carbon emissions. Recent data suggests otherwise. In the latest Sustainability in Trucking Snapshot survey of 588 truck drivers, dispatchers, and owner-operators, 27% reported that they were already measuring their carbon footprint today. Further, 34% of carriers surveyed reported feeling pressure to reduce carbon emissions in their business, with the top motivator being “greater awareness of the environmental impact of carbon emissions.” 

Sustainability, or the pursuit of maintaining conditions under which humans and nature can exist in productive harmony to support present and future generations, affects everything we do. The sustainable choices we make today in how we operate can significantly impact the future of our businesses and their resiliency in a competitive market. Companies do not work in isolation. They are embedded in society and impact individuals, communities, and the environment. Operating a successful business entails strategically managing a complex variety of elements. 

How sustainability can benefit your business

1. Differentiate your carrier business

Operating with a sustainability mindset sets you apart. A McKinsey study published in September 2022 on where the “world’s largest companies stand on nature” stated that 83% of Fortune Global 500 companies have climate-related targets. Companies are digging deeper into their supply chains to figure out how to reduce carbon emissions. If you are using bio-based fuels, electric trucks, or safe and efficient driving practices, those may soon become factors enabling you to win a bid. 

It offers distinct competitive advantages:

• Differentiate your carrier from competitors, as shippers prefer companies with a distinct focus on people and the planet.
• Engages a sense of purpose, resulting in a better product, more streamlined operations, long-term cost savings, happier employees, and a new customer base who prefers to do business with a sustainably minded company.  
• An increasing number of banks and lending institutions prioritize financing companies with a sustainability mindset, as they see it as a commitment to the long-term future and viability of the organization, the industry, and the global community.

2. Expand your business

Making a sustainable impact translates to added value for anyone doing business with you and puts you in a better position to win. This added value will enable you to steal market share from those who don’t operate sustainably and puts you at an advantage when considering booking loads, financing, and more. 

We’re increasingly hearing that shippers are starting to prioritize brokers and carriers who can deliver higher fuel efficiency with proven data to back it up. When incorporating environmentally conscious practices into your business, you need the ability to speak to it clearly and have the data to show that your vehicles are operating efficiently. Consistently tracking the right data makes it easier to have this information readily available for your financing department and planning. 

3. Access new business opportunities

With sustainability moving front and center in the corporate world, an organization operating with a People, Planet, and Profit mentality can take advantage of a wide range of new business opportunities never before available.

A supplier diversity program is a proactive business program that encourages the use of minority-owned, women-owned, veteran-owned, LGBT-owned, and service-disabled veteran-owned. Becoming certified as a women-owned business sets you apart and gives you a distinct advantage to win more business. Shippers are increasingly asking us to provide them the “Certified Diverse Supplier” data for Quarterly and Annual Business reviews and are willing to pay a premium to work with “Certified Diverse carriers”. We asked 200 shippers in June of this year, “How much are you willing to pay for diverse carriers?” 26% said they’d pay up to 10% more per load, and 13% said they’d be willing to pay more than 10% per load. We are starting to also see a strong interest in a similar incentive structure for “greener” freight options.  

As a new carrier, I know supplier diversity programs were going to give my business a competitive advantage and stand out with companies like Convoy. Today I’m hauling dedicated loads on my favorite lanes and working hassle-free.”

Trielle Hart, KDZ Brands Transport & Logistics Inc.

4. Reduce operating costs

It’s not a secret that the trucking industry suffers from waste. When you look at your operations through a sustainability lens, there are many opportunities to drive efficiency. Research shows that 35% of the time, trucks are driving on the road empty. These empty miles, or deadhead miles, are not good for the environment, nor for your wallet. Newer innovations in the freight industry, however, present an opportunity for carriers to reduce empty miles, eliminate harmful carbon emissions and save money. Convoy’s batching capabilities allows drivers to bundle their shipments, reducing empty miles from the industry standard of 35% to 19% (a 45% reduction). By finding backhauls, carriers avoid the environmental and financial costs of hauling empty. If the industry as a whole is able to achieve the same efficiency improvements that Convoy has seen in our bundled shipments, it would reduce CO2 emissions by 40 million metric tons. This is the equivalent of taking more than 8.6 million passenger vehicles off the roads for a year. 

We are continuously searching for ways to improve sustainability and reduce emissions across our entire value chain. By working with Convoy, we are able to lead this charge by collectively addressing the challenge of empty miles within the industry, streamlining our business, and contributing to a more sustainable future.”

Charmaria Gurley, Gurley All Freight

To conclude, sustainability adds value to your carrier business by providing a unique point of differentiation from your competition and enabling you to earn more customers who want to do business with a sustainability-minded company. It can also give you access to new business opportunities while achieving cost savings in the short and long term. Ultimately, this can lead to growing your revenue through additional business and making it easier to access financing to expand operations.

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The clock is ticking to make the changes needed to stave off the devastating effects of climate change, and there is an urgent need to translate the aspirations and expectations into concrete outcomes. The “what” – net-zero emissions by 2050 – must now come with a “how” – decarbonizing supply chains through innovation. 

Convoy recently hosted a session during the 2022 ICC “Make Climate Action Everyone’s Business Forum” Conference, a virtual event of disruptive ideas and ground-breaking insights from stakeholders delivering solutions to the world’s toughest climate and sustainability challenges. I virtually sat down with two transportation leaders working on the “how” in the industry. Andy Brown, Product Marketing Manager of Electromobility at Volvo, and Samuel Morales, Senior Manager of Carrier Programs of Convoy, are a wealth of industry knowledge. 

Here’s what they have to say about “Making Zero Emission Trucking a Reality.” 

The challenges facing the adoption of electric trucks

Andy Brown of Volvo: We first need to reach a place where the price gap between the initial investment to purchase an electric vehicle has achieved parity with the price of a diesel vehicle. Electrification is also a profoundly interconnected ecosystem. It’s more complex than buying a truck in a plug-and-play model, as there are different value streams that customers, big or small, have to factor in, such as your infrastructure. Critical factors include where you will charge a truck, how that will fit into your operational standards, and in addition, the shifts in the daily life of a truck driver. Another critical challenge is the charging infrastructure and whether that is public or private charging. For example, if you send an EV truck to California, there may be limitations on the time of day you can charge your vehicle to an already stressed energy grid. On top of that, we need to ensure that our microgrids can handle this. 

Samuel Morales of Convoy: When you think about the public infrastructure needed to support electrification, you’re regionally bound to California, Texas, and a few other areas. These regional limitations present a challenge when shippers consider adopting or scaling electric trucks in areas with limited infrastructure to support electromobility. Another challenge to adoption is the range of electric vehicles when we look at haul length from a utilization perspective. We have long, regional, short, and city haul when you look at most over-the-road movements. At Convoy, we think of local freight moving from a hub-and-spoke distribution model, which lends itself to leveraging electric trucking technology. However, that’s not the majority of the freight. When considering who uses electric trucks today, it’s confined to local freight movements. But the good news is that we see the technology for electric trucks improving. 

Another industry-wide challenge is the intensive capital resourcing required to implement, which is traditionally reserved for only larger asset-based fleets. Investments include developing a policy team to deal with local regulations and permitting to install the charging infrastructure. So, there is a disparity in enabling electric trucking technology as you go down the chain from a large fleet size with the capital available to adopt this technology to the small owner-operator. Other factors that can influence adoption are insurance requirements, driver comfortability, or awareness. And last, we still see that some people are hesitant about change and new technology. 

Awareness, education, and professional development of electric truck drivers

Andy Brown of Volvo: The definition of success for my job is to advocate on behalf of and educate regulators, customers, and fleet owners on the importance of electrification.

Volvo recently had an electromobility summit where we invited customers throughout North America to our global customer center in Dublin, Virginia. The goal was to educate Volvo’s customers on electromobility. Hesitation or resistance is just a natural curve of change adoption and change management. To keep drivers comfortable in their environment, Volvo designed the Volvo North American Regional (VNR) Electric to be the same cab as we built on the VNR Diesel, which has been around since 2017. There are only a few minor differences, which include the regenerative stock and what you see on the dashboard. These different aspects are designed with intent, so you don’t overwhelm the driver. 

The general population can only handle a certain amount of change with a product update from the first to the next generation, which is why we can’t just bring the same electric truck cab style already utilized in Europe and expect widespread adoption. Here in North America, you have the conventional style. Volvo wanted to stay true to the North American personas by providing an electrified version of a truck that drivers are accustomed to, accelerating the shift to electromobility. 

Importance of industry collaboration to accelerate electric truck adoption

Samuel Morales of Convoy: Consumers are driving the push toward sustainability. At Convoy, our shippers are looking for support to meet the demand to drive greener logistics in their supply chains. 

First, we tackle how to reduce carbon emissions in our trucking space. We identify what the future is and acknowledge the dependencies to get there. Convoy and Volvo have been in a wonderful relationship looking at ‘how do we approach this problem space?’  We work with our shippers to understand their climate roadmap and their drive to achieve carbon reductions. We also talk to our carrier base to learn how they are shifting to electric today. Next, we analyze our supply chain to understand which lanes electrification makes sense and the infrastructure dependencies. Then we build a plan together to architect the implementation. Throughout this process, we consider the stakeholders involved and how Convoy can support carriers and help manage shipments going forward.  

Electric truck adoption requires extensive collaboration across the industry. We need to set up infrastructure in teams to manage the complexities of this supply chain, manage regulatory requirements, and analyze facility abilities to work with electric vehicles. There are considerations at the implementation stage of where to place the electric trucks in your network, what type of freight you give them, and how you strategically leverage them. So having those discussions and identifying those dependencies are a great way to address this problem space and how we started doing it here at Convoy.

The future of electromobility in trucking 

Andy Brown of Volvo: Today, Volvo is focused on the continual adoption of short and regional haul. That’s where the Volvo North America Regional Haul (VNR) really shines with the short hood, excellent visibility, and maneuverability, making it perfect for city traffic.  As we start to look into the future, Volvo has three parallel roads. First, improve the battery technology of the battery electric vehicle (BEV) and adopt that to our Volvo North America Long hood (VNL). Second, for the long haul, we have a joint venture with Cellcentric to accelerate the use of hydrogen technology to increase the range of electric vehicles. Third, there is the continual production of internal combustion engines (ICE) with I-torque and turbo compounds and other levers we can control. I believe we can achieve a fossil-free transportation future through these three pathways. 

Samuel Morales of Convoy: The future of commercial electric vehicles will depend on innovation by manufacturers and pioneering by shippers and transportation partners such as Convoy. We know the constraints today with mileage and the need for increased utilization to justify high investments to adopt this new technology. In the next ten years, I see a reduction in this technology’s total cost, enabling widespread adoption. I also envision shippers making a heavier investment and preference to leverage this technology in their overall supply chain as a result of end-customer feedback. I look forward to zero-emission freight becoming the new normal within 10-20 years!

Learn more about how you can join us in our mission to transport the world with endless capacity and zero waste. 

[1] United States Environmental Protection Agency. 2020. “Fast Facts on Transportation Greenhouse Gas Emissions.” https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/fast-facts-transportation-greenhouse-gas-emissions.
[2] American Trucking Association. N.d. “Economics and Industry Data.” https://www.trucking.org/economics-and-industry-data.

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Standardization of data in the logistics industry

One of the biggest challenges transportation companies experience with emissions calculations is that greenhouse gas emissions have been calculated in many different ways depending on the company, provider, or partner. By receiving the GLEC Accreditation, Convoy can assure its shippers that they are receiving some of the most accurate and transparent carbon emissions data in the freight industry. Aligning our methodology to the GLEC Framework enables Convoy to provide insights to shippers to inform business decisions and steer efforts to reduce emissions.

“We’re proud to welcome Convoy as one of our partners accredited by SFC to calculate and report emissions following the GLEC Framework. Improving the standardization of logistics emissions is urgent, and this solution will help North American actors along the supply chain better assess their logistics emissions.’ said Rik Arends, Program Director at Smart Freight Centre.

Convoy’s approach to the GLEC Framework

Convoy utilizes fuel consumption data from the Environmental Protection Agency’s Smartway Carrier Tool and fuel efficiency data directly from the carriers. Carriers who register and join SmartWay Carrier Partners measure, benchmark, and track their efforts to increase efficiency and fuel economy, in addition to having the documentation to prove it. This data enables our shippers to calculate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for Scope 3 under the GLEC Framework.

“Our Smart Freight Centre (SFC) accreditation shows that Convoy is committed to aligning our work with globally recognized frameworks,” said Jennifer Wong, Director of Sustainability. “We look forward to continued partnership with SFC to bring transparency and drive climate action in partnership with our shippers and carriers.”

Trucking’s climate impact is significant and growing

The transportation sector is the largest source of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. In 2020, medium- and heavy-duty trucks accounted for 26% of all transportation emissions¹. Additionally, 35% of the time, trucks drive empty, generating more than 87 million metric tons of carbon emissions which pollute our environment every year.

Today, by aligning our carbon emissions methodology to the gold standard in logistics emissions reporting, the GLEC Framework, we can now provide our shippers and carriers with transparent reporting on carbon emissions.

Partnerships to drive change

The SFC Accreditation of GLEC-compliant tools and programs is part of the SFC’s advocacy work around industry standards to report and reduce emissions.

Convoy will continue to work with SFC and GLEC to support SFC’s goals of driving the adoption of a universal and transparent method of calculating freight emissions across the global supply chain.

Convoy’s accreditation by SFC is very encouraging for companies that have committed to acting responsibly and accurately measuring their CO2 emissions. “Accreditation is the first step as we work towards improving the quality and quantity of truck-level data. Convoy is focused on providing accurate, real-time transparency for our shippers into the emissions that flow within our network,” stated Jennifer Wong.

What it means for shippers

Shippers that work with Convoy can reach out to their account managers to partner with our sustainability team to better understand the carbon emissions in their operations today. In fact, Convoy can provide shippers with emissions reporting as far back as their first shipment in Convoy’s digital freight network.

ABOUT GLEC

Led by SFC, the Global Logistics Emissions Council (GLEC) was established in 2014 as a voluntary partnership and has grown to more than 50 companies, industry associations, and green freight programs backed by experts, governments, and other stakeholders. Together, they develop and implement global guidelines to calculate, report, and reduce logistics emissions that work for the industry.

ABOUT THE SMART FREIGHT CENTER

Smart Freight Center is a global non-profit organization dedicated to an efficient, zero-emissions freight sector. SFC brings together and works with the global logistics community to drive transparency, collaboration, and industry action – contributing to the Paris Climate Agreement targets and Sustainable Development Goals. Our goal is that 100+ multinationals reduce at least 30% of logistics emissions by 2030 compared to 2015 across their global logistics supply chains and decarbonize by 2050.

1. EPA, 2020, Fast Facts Transportation Greenhouse Gas Emissions. 

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Survey highlights include key trends in trucking and new data insights:

Minorities continue to bear the worst impacts of climate change

• The trend persists from the March 2022 trucking survey, which recognized that minority carriers are experiencing disproportionate impacts of climate change on their communities.
• When asked to what degree climate change was affecting their communities, 84% of Asian Americans, 62% of Black Americans, and 76% of Latinos said it was slightly, moderately, or strongly impacting their community. Only 48% of white respondents reported feeling an impact of climate change to the same extent.

Personal motivations drive pressures to reduce carbon emissions

• Carriers reported awareness of the environmental impact of carbon emissions as the top reason for reducing carbon emissions. This diverges from the March 2022 survey results, where government regulations were cited as the top reason, likely due to the SEC Climate Disclosure Rule being proposed at the time.
• As inflation continues to rise and gas prices remain at near record highs, reduced operating costs as a top reason for reducing carbon emissions has increased 7% compared to the March survey. 
• Carriers who feel pressure to reduce carbon emissions in their business are 50% more likely to be tracking or reporting them in their business today.

Carriers are willing to provide data to understand emissions

• 45% of carriers are willing to provide fuel efficiency data of trucks to Convoy to track carbon emissions. 
• 22% of carriers are currently tracking and reporting carbon emissions today.

Soaring inflation doesn’t stop carriers from wanting to buy new trucks – including alternative fuel options

• Nearly 70% of survey respondents are planning to make a new truck purchase within the next 3 years.
• Of that 70%, over one-third are considering purchasing an alternative fuel truck.
• The top barrier to purchasing an alternative fuel vehicle is the high cost of these trucks.

Predictable schedules are important for truck drivers

• For the first time, we added childcare responsibilities and caretaking for adults as options for demographic self-identification. Truck driving is a demanding job and requires long hours away from home. Over half of respondents have children and one-third are a caretaker for an adult.

Download the Sustainability in Trucking Snapshot Report to see the full data for sustainability trends in trucking.

Sustainability at Convoy

We are focused on reducing the billions of waste in trucking and improving the lives of truck drivers. Learn more about Convoy’s commitment to supply chain sustainability.

The post Sustainability in Trucking Snapshot Report: October 2022 appeared first on Convoy.

“We are excited to renew our work with the United Nations, our customers, and our partners in building a more sustainable future,” said Convoy’s CEO Dan Lewis. “We believe businesses play a key role in advancing Sustainable Development Goals that improve the quality of life around the globe so we may all live in health, dignity, prosperity, and equality.”

The UN Global Compact is a corporate initiative that encourages organizations to establish and define strategies, policies, and procedures aligned with the Ten Principles on human rights, labor, environment, and anti-corruption.

The seventeen Sustainable Development Goals are designed as a blueprint to achieve a more sustainable future for all. Adopted by the United Nations in 2015, the goals serve as a universal call to action to end poverty and protect the planet.

Convoy’s continued participation in the United Nations Global Compact reinforces its mission to transport the world’s goods with endless capacity and zero waste. As a leader in sustainability, Convoy is focused on empowering customers and small trucking companies to Ship Responsibly and optimize freight efficiencies that will help them meet their environmental goals. 

Launched in 2000, the UN Global Compact is a globally recognized voluntary initiative that currently has over 13,000 signatories such as Convoy customers Unilever, Starbucks, Owens Corning, and Ford Motor Company based in 160 countries representing a variety of industries. For more info, visit unglobalcompact.org.

Read Convoy’s Communication on Progress.

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On June 1 and 2, more than 800 Fortune 500 shippers, logistics providers, government officials, and industry heavyweights descended on Chicago to discuss how working together can help transform the industry by focusing on unlocking capacity, driving innovation, and revolutionizing supply chain execution. 

Convoy also attended, participating in a panel discussion on achieving sustainability goals and reducing waste in freight alongside Volvo Group and Bayer. When we weren’t discussing how the supply chain can help the planet, we were jotting down notes and taking names. We didn’t want to miss out on those insights, and we don’t want you to either. 

Across a jam-packed two days of panels and fireside chats, a few themes kept arising that we’re obsessing about at Convoy and believe other transportation teams should be too. 

No. 1: Achieving data visibility and the journey to digitization 

Every company aspires to have end-to-end visibility of their supply chain, and many Reuters attendees, like Wayfair, Bayer, and Mondelēz, have embarked on their journeys to get there. 

In his keynote, “From Cost Center to Brand Differentiator: Enhancing Efficiency & Speed in Logistics,” Sean Halligan, Wayfair’s global chief supply chain officer, shared his team’s ultimate goal: providing consumers at point of sale a 30-minute delivery window for two weeks out. The only way to reach this precise delivery experience is with full visibility, something they’re “constantly working on.” It starts with going digital. 

For Bayer, their digital transformation began six years ago, when the team started implementing a new transportation management system at remarkable scale — across 74 countries.

Facing a digital transformation project of similar scale? Johnny Ivanyi, global head of distribution at Bayer, shared his advice in “How Bayer’s Digital Transformation Journey Brings its Logistics Operations to the Next Level”: First, get your stakeholders engaged and leadership aligned. Break the larger project down into smaller chunks. And change management is hard, so keep people inspired. For instance, they created opportunities for employees to become “super-users,” who get to travel the world inspiring, teaching, and training their coworkers in other countries. 

For Mondelēz International, COVID accelerated their journey to digitization, recognizing that digitizing the supply chain helps unlock better quality data in real time. “It’s easier when you can see [the data] and react to it in real time,” said Andrea Turner, SVP of global customer service and logistics, “and that’s still a hurdle.” Andrea called for more data sharing across the industry in her interactive panel, appropriately named “Balancing Relationships and Technology in Logistics.”

“It’s great to have data, but it’s better to be able to partner with others to use their data too,” she said. “How do we really share that data? How do you move it together? Understanding truth is an opportunity in the collaboration space. That’s a daunting task among our providers.” 

No. 2: Building a more sustainable supply chain 

“The mentality has shifted,” said Perry Jones, president of North America Supply at Diageo. “How do we leave this Earth in a better position for the next generation? It’s a social responsibility, not an economic one.” 

Waste is a problem that every company has today – and must take action to solve. Leaders at Convoy, Bayer, and Volvo talked about how they’re working to be part of the solution, in their interactive panel called “Collaboration: The Path to Greater Success in Achieving Sustainability Goals & Reducing Waste in Freight.”

Ryan Gavin, chief growth officer at Convoy, cited that heavy trucks run 175 billion miles moving truckload freight in the U.S. every year. Of these, 61 billion are empty miles — miles driven by a truck without a load — that contribute more than 87 million metric tons of carbon emissions annually. Every year, 35% of all miles driven are empty miles.  

Gavin talked about how shippers partner with Convoy to reduce empty miles and achieve their sustainability goals: first, by bundling their shipments together for drivers, which reduces empty miles by 45%, from the industry standard of 35% to 19%. Also, shippers that can be flexible with their appointment windows help fit their shipments into carriers’ schedules, reducing carbon emissions by 36%. 

The industry can continue to make larger and more meaningful impacts for our planet by working together. 

“The one thing to take back is not to operate in a vacuum,” Jones said in “The Path to Net-Zero — The Role that Logistics Has to Play,” Diageo’s keynote. “There are partnerships out there, and people are willing to work with each other to solve this. We should be collaborating to get to a better outcome for that next generation. The folks in this room could lead that legacy.”

No. 3: Improving your supply chain resiliency

Dow Chemical, Pfizer, Cardinal Health, Macy’s, and others touched on resilience. In moderating the keynote, “Building Resilience, Agility and Sustainability into Your Global Supply Chain for a Better Customer Experience,” conference host Ryan Patel said resilience has become a buzzword. What does it actually mean?

Dow Chief Supply Chain Officer Greg Jozwiak started with a joke (“I wish I had a dime for every email I received offering me resiliency”) but went on to answer: “It’s about how fast you can recover and convert learnings from past events into your playbook. We will have disruptions. We don’t know what the next ones will be — hurricane season, floods, strikes, trade wars, wars. You can’t anticipate it, but you need a way to recover from it.” 

To be more resilient, Dow invested in its planning capabilities by creating playbooks that help everyone both tenured and new know what to do if a moment calls for a pivot. 

Others talked about being more resilient by avoiding single points of failure in their supply chain. In the keynote, “Resilient Network Design for Peak Season and Beyond,” Megan Evert, SVP of Operations at Flexe, recommended running an analysis to help identify and avoid any single point of failure to maintain business continuity. “All of your eggs in one basket is a huge risk to your network,” she said. “Find your plan Bs.” 

Others recommended avoiding single points of failure across the supply chain by diversifying networks and expanding provider bases.

In the keynote, “Drive Quick & Efficient Fulfillment in the Face of Unpredictability,” Jerry Mujica, VP of America’s Regional Supply Operations & Customer Support, says Pfizer manages two types of unpredictability: fluctuations in demand and routing challenges like weather or damaged products due to temperature sensitivity (you may recall Pfizer manufactures the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine). For the Pfizer transportation team, the key to resilience means working closely with their carrier partners to flex and reroute at a moment’s notice.

Here’s how we at Convoy are thinking about these three themes and how you can too

Achieving data visibility. Building a more sustainable supply chain. Improving your supply chain resiliency. 

At Convoy, we believe building resiliency into a transportation network centers around five operating principles, starting with two of our themes — visibility and sustainability — as well as reliability, flexibility, and efficiency.

We’re constantly working to deliver real-time visibility throughout the shipment lifecycle, most recently announcing on-demand access to next-gen facility insights to drive performance and control costs. Shippers partner with Convoy to reduce empty miles and achieve their sustainability targets — companies have saved more than 8 million pounds of carbon emissions by shipping with Convoy.

You don’t have to make trade-offs to get it all. It comes down to having a freight partner that can help you achieve all five, for optimal performance in any environment. Drop us a note if you would like to learn more, and let’s collaborate on making our supply chains as efficient as they possibly can be.

The post Three key themes from Reuters Supply Chain Execution that your transportation teams should be thinking about appeared first on Convoy.

To build this report we gathered insights from over 200 companies to find out how they are approaching sustainability. Companies such as Teneris, The Greenheck Group, and APL Logistics face a multitude of sustainability risks and opportunities in their supply chains. This report will highlight the viewpoints of these companies, along with others, about how they and their transportations departments are structuring their approach to supply chain sustainability. 

The vast majority of companies understand that improving sustainability in the supply chain is a vital task. Almost 70% of the companies we surveyed said that sustainability was important or very important to their business. There was, however, less cohesion around how to define and manage sustainability. We outline and compare the different approaches to managing sustainability risk and offer insights into how best to get started or continue progressing. 

This report identifies the biggest levers that transportation companies can use to have a positive impact and increase their sustainability. For some companies, this includes reductions in greenhouse gas emission through the reduction of empty miles or other efficiency improvements. For others, implementing policies that improve carrier safety and diversity, or increase driver quality of life, will have a lasting impact upon their sustainability performance and reputation.

Download this State of Sustainability in Transportation report to see how businesses are prioritizing sustainability in their supply chain.

Sustainability at Convoy

We are focused on reducing the billions of waste in trucking and supporting the communities where we live and work. Learn more about Convoy’s commitment to sustainability.

The post The State of Sustainability in Transportation: Managing sustainable supply chain opportunities and risks appeared first on Convoy.

Convoy’s CEO Dan Lewis participated in two on-stage discussions, including an insightful interview with FreightWaves CEO Craig Fuller on today’s volatile freight market, and a one-on-one conversation with CHEP’s Director of Supply Chain George Brehovsky about driving greater sustainable outcomes through relationships, collaboration, data and technology.

Navigating Volatility in Today’s Freight Markets

While it’s often said that the only thing predictable about the freight market is its unpredictability, shippers, carriers and brokers alike need to be prepared to manage the ups and downs that will inevitably arrive. 

According to Dan, the solution isn’t to solve for the inevitable volatility, but to remain flexible and have a system that can handle and react to market fluctuations. The best solution is a system that’s elastic at its core, with flexible procurement, capacity and drop-and-hook networks that function well with high performance in any market condition. “I want to focus on building our entire business to be reactive and flexible to what’s happening in the market, in that short term, whether it’s weeks or months … and support our customers through that,” said Dan.

Driving Sustainable Innovation Through Relationships and Trust

Following his main stage talk with Craig, Dan took to the FreightWavesTV stage for an engaging discussion with CHEP’s director of supply chain, George Brehovsky, on sustainability and how technology, data and partnerships can drive greater outcomes in the supply chain.

As Dan discussed, sustainability at Convoy means reducing empty miles and the time drivers spend idling at facilities, while also making the truck driving profession more sustainable. To do that, you need to think outside the box.

“How do we build systems that are innovative, whether that’s making the trailer available to the driver that does the Convoy job for the next job, that they might want to do that may be outside the Convoy network, or combining different types of jobs and giving the driver the flexibility to reuse that trailer as a way to efficiently preposition it without having to do an empty run?” said Dan.

George agreed. “Our organization has been innovative to begin with, and always willing to try new things. We were one of the first to partner with Convoy originally. I feel it starts with having the right open-minded culture to really challenge the norms. We, as an organization, are always pushing the boundaries to challenge ourselves to think differently and really try to look at the larger picture.”

George went on to discuss CHEP’s approach to sustainability, which is rooted in partnership. “We have a customer collaboration program called The Zero Waste World where we partner with our customers and the industry to help solve common challenges,” said George. “We have a ton of data, including the origin and destination of every pallet which is core to our program. By using that data, we’re able to unlock a lot of network visibility out there that, as an industry connector, helps us identify opportunities for customers, whether that’s benchmarking their inventory, or connecting transport which allows them to help eradicate empty miles. [For example] we have a customer transport collaboration program, where we’re able to match a shipper with a shipper, to share common capacity on certain lanes, or improve truckload fill rates.” 

George also discussed some intriguing new areas CHEP is exploring to reduce waste with pallets.

“How do we repurpose, not just our waste, but potentially our customers’ waste, to put that into things like composite materials that could further help reduce the weight of panels?”

Throughout the discussion, collaboration was recognized as an area of mutual importance between both CHEP and Convoy. As Dan noted at the end of the discussion, trust and relationships are critical for innovation of any kind: “Being a tech company that innovates on the existing model requires stronger relationships than selling the status quo. To innovate, you need to have early adopters willing to take risks and try the ‘new thing’. When you ask any business to change, they have to really trust you and believe in your intentions.”

Sustainability at Convoy

We are focused on reducing the billions of waste in trucking and supporting the communities where we live and work. Learn more about Convoy’s commitment to sustainability.

The post Convoy Leans into Sustainability at FreightWaves Future of Supply Chain Event appeared first on Convoy.

This year, Convoy took its Earth Week activities to a whole new level, hosting a wide array of in-person and virtual activities for our employees to get involved, learn from their colleagues and share their perspectives on what the planet and this special week means to them. 

Following are a few of the highlights:

Virtual Speaker Series

To bring new perspectives to sustainability in transportation, business and our own daily lives, Convoy hosted an engaging and diverse set of experts for a series of interactive discussions virtually throughout the week. This year’s speaker series included:

• Anne Goodchild, Director of the University of Washington Supply Chain Transportation and Logistics Center
• Sarah Dimson-Tararuj, Head of Partnerships and Programs at The Climate Pledge
• Kathryn Kellogg, the founder of Going Zero Waste and author of 101 Ways to Go Zero Waste
• Karl People, an Environmental Protection Specialist with the Environmental Protection Agency
• Wolfgang Lehmacher, the former Head of Transport and Supply Chain Industries for the World Economic Forum
• Dr Frederick Dooley, Chair of Life Science at Everett Community College

Homes for Houseplants

A new event in 2022, Homes For Houseplants was a company-wide, multi-site event that invited employees in both Seattle and Atlanta to adopt their first houseplants, trade plant clippings and get educated on plant types and care. Convoy provided over 200 houseplants to employees, along with tools, pots, and soil, and all were adopted—even our CEO, Dan Lewis, adopted a plant! Each individual plant came with a QR code to provide next steps and caretaking advice for their budding owners, and Convoy hosted an “ask us anything” discussion to further answer questions and foster discussion about plant care. We also started a Slack forum for employees to share photos of their plants and continue discussions that stemmed from the event. A fresh vegan lunch was enjoyed along with a plant-inspired playlist. Homes For Houseplants was a huge success, and many left the event excited to bring plants into their homes for the first time.

Sustainability Stories From Convoy Employees

An annual highlight of Convoy’s annual Earth Week activities is a series of short presentations from Convoy employees on how they personally incorporate sustainability into their daily lives outside of work, and our 2022 speakers did not disappoint. This year’s presenters focused on a wide range topics from easy first steps to become a more mindful consumer, how to use a footprint finder and eat less red meat, insights into dumpster diving and the problem of food waste, getting around Seattle for four and a half years without a car, oil-free vegetarian cooking, how to live a plant-based/vegan lifestyle, the benefits of building a tiny home, and daily life swaps that benefit the planet!

Convoy Green Taskforce

Another new Earth Week initiative for 2022 was the introduction of Convoy’s inaugural Green Taskforce. This internal group was created to identify areas in which Convoy can strive to align with ideals of sustainability and waste reduction, and develop plans to execute on those ideas. Within a week of its inception, the Green Taskforce boasted a membership of 20 volunteers, including experts in data science, customer care, design and building direction. Practically immediately after its inception the Taskforce launched more than 20 projects, including identifying ways to cut back on plasticware in Convoy’s kitchens, saving $10,000 worth of plasticware per month from being purchased and thrown into the trash. 

It’s exciting and rewarding to see how enthusiasm for Convoy’s sustainability-focused mission translates into Convoyagers’ daily lives, and we can’t wait to see what’s in store for Earth Week 2023!

Convoy is hiring passionate team players who want to have an outsized impact on a diverse and dynamic team. Join Convoy and help us transport the world with endless capacity and zero waste.

The post A look back at Earth Week 2022 appeared first on Convoy.

Since Convoy started seven years ago, I have challenged our teams to use technology to improve trucking and shape the future of freight to benefit carriers, truck drivers, shippers, and the environment. I believe that technology, alongside capable operators, has the power to deliver this type of win-win-win. Over the last decade, connectivity has become ubiquitous, matched with cloud technology that effectively removes data capacity, processing power, and scale limitations. As we’ve applied these capabilities to instrumenting, coordinating, and automating freight across millions of truckers, we’re increasing productivity, facilitating industry collaboration among shippers, carriers, and brokers, and eliminating the empty miles so prevalent in historical freight methods. 

We are in the early days of technology improving trucking — our work is only just getting started. Here’s to seeing what problems we can work together to solve next.

1. True elastic capacity

The only supply chain constant is volatility. Whether it’s a backed-up facility, a swing in demand, moves outside normal patterns, or a full-on market swing, transportation teams are constantly fighting to maintain service levels.

We have invested in creating this elasticity — the real-time ability to dynamically activate trucks, trailers, and drivers to match needs — to provide a high level of service to customers and absorb the swings they experience in their business. For example, over the past several years, our Convoy Go program has become the most flexible trailer option on the market. To achieve this, we use technology to continually analyze the number of trailers customers need at a given facility to satisfy upcoming loads. Our systems automatically route and rebalance thousands of trailers and trucks across a geography to ensure customers always have what they need. This elasticity lets facilities operate at peak efficiency, despite unexpected levels of demand.

2. Guaranteed coverage

In a fragmented industry where capacity and service levels are inconsistent, shippers maintain relationships and solicit bids from dozens or even hundreds of carriers in order to have redundant options, even in a small region or on a particular lane. Despite this significant undertaking, coverage can still be unreliable, and reacting to routing guide failure is a regular challenge for every transportation team. 

Guaranteed coverage will become a reality for shippers, and they will receive game-changing benefits. Coverage failures will become rare, dramatically simplifying procurement and operations. Systems will become more tightly integrated, and processes at facilities like dock scheduling and loading will be optimized. All of this results in significant savings on the total cost of freight.  

At Convoy, we operate a network that reaches tens of thousands of owner-operators and small trucking companies every day — fully automated and larger than the traditional approach. Through this network, Convoy can match the needs of our customers in any market condition. Customers adopting Convoy’s Guaranteed Primary program are already receiving these benefits today, including keeping products on shelves, transparent pricing, and cost savings. 

3. Connecting all freight with all drivers

90% of America’s truck drivers are owner-operators or employed by small businesses with fewer than six trucks. These entrepreneurs are the backbone of the American supply chain, yet they face challenges not shared by larger counterparts: lack of access to quality loads from large shippers, uncertainty about consistent work, and unfair financial treatment. 

As the industry continues to adopt new technology, small carriers will have access to the same protections and opportunities as large trucking companies.

Convoy’s app empowers drivers to service loads from the largest shippers, proactively plan their routes to know when they’ll be home with their families, and create schedules that keep their truck full and earnings predictable. Even at seven years in, it’s still very early, with much more potential to better learn preferences to help drivers and small businesses make decisions on the most impactful options.

4. New frontiers to drive down total costs

Transportation is no longer just about getting trucks. Transportation teams increasingly rely on insights gathered from analyzing tender practices, facility operations, driver feedback, and more to increase efficiency and drive down costs. There’s still a lot to do to make this data easily accessible, and this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Traditionally, fragmentation in freight has made it one of the most challenging links to integrate in supply chain management. Digital freight networks like Convoy have systems orchestrating every step of the shipment lifecycle with real-time connectivity from tenders and spot boards all the way to the inside of trailers and the cab of each truck. There is incredible potential to optimize inventory, warehouses, orders, and more by providing signals into shipper systems delivered through real-time APIs, not humans. Today, some of Convoy’s customers run their daily list of orders through our systems, where we are using our signals to consolidate orders into fewer trucks and more efficient routes with lower total costs. This is one benefit of dozens we will discover in the years ahead.

5. Self-driving trucks team up with human drivers

The adoption of self-driving trucks will take many years to be fully realized. I believe one of the first places we’ll see this applied is expanding the 11 hours of service drivers get today. As autonomous driving technology matures, drivers will be able to hand off navigating the highway portions to the vehicle so that the human driver can go off duty, rest, and reset their hours of service.

As self-driving trucks enter the market, we will see years of mixed fleets containing traditional and autonomous trucks of varying degrees, as well as mixed rules and regulations for fleet operators to follow. Whether a truck can drive autonomously will vary by its load, technology, location, current weather conditions, traffic situations, etc. Doing this effectively will require technology and techniques like machine learning and AI to consider these variables and optimize. This will be a big opportunity for Convoy and an exciting area to partner in.

6. No empty miles

Waste benefits no one — it’s bad for carriers, shippers, and the environment. Today, 90% of S&P 500 companies invest in and report annual corporate sustainability goals, up from 20% a decade ago. In March, the SEC announced a climate disclosure proposal tying greenhouse gas emissions and indirect emissions to risk management. As sustainability continues to gain momentum in modern business practices, freight logistics represents a massive, largely untapped opportunity in sustainability. 

With 35% of all heavy-duty truck miles still being driven empty, technology-driven freight operations will become a meaningful and measurable contributor to companies’ sustainability goals. If the industry can achieve the same efficiency improvements that Convoy has seen on bundled shipments, it would reduce carbon emissions by 40 million metric tons annually. That’s the equivalent of taking more than 8.6 million passenger vehicles off the road for one year, or planting 661 million tree seedlings that grow for 10 years.

If you’re reading this, I hope you’ll push to make sustainable logistics procurement a first-order priority and put an emphasis on any freight companies eliminating empty miles. 

This story originally appeared in Convoy’s “The Future of Freight,” featuring 40 thoughtfully curated pages on supply chain disruption, freight procurement, market volatility, and more.

The post The Road Ahead: 6 Ways Technology Will Enable the Future of Freight appeared first on Convoy.

The problem of empty miles and driver utilization

Over 35% of all miles driven by truck drivers on an annual basis are driven empty. These empty miles produce over 87 million metric tons of CO2-equivalent emissions into the earth’s atmosphere on an annual basis.

“There’s an incredible cost that comes with empty miles and extra time sitting around letting [trucks] burn fuel. With this case, that adds cost to our customers. So one of the most direct ways to get our customers to appreciate and understand the impact [of empty miles] is by associating it to the cost to their business,” said Dan Lewis.

Dan went on to discuss the importance of sustainability for carriers as well. “Not only is it a financial cost for the extra miles driven and the additional fuel being burned, it’s also a cost on the drivers. Trucking is not the most sustainable profession…. If we can make [the profession] more efficient and we can help [truck drivers] be more productive and earn more per mile being driven, then they can have a more sustainable career and the industry can be more sustainable and attract more drivers.”

The misconception of ESG investing and underperformance

Convoy is not alone on its journey to make supply chains more sustainable. As of 2022, a vast majority of Fortune 500 shippers produce sustainability reports. One of the goals of these reports is to help companies be more transparent with stakeholders and investors when it comes to ESG topics. 

It’s a common misconception in business and investing that companies who focus on sustainable solutions and products are less profitable and less successful. Joy, speaking on behalf of Generation, thinks that in today’s world, this couldn’t be farther from the truth. In the discussion Joy spoke about Generation’s viewpoint that the economy over the coming years will experience “a significant shift, which we like to refer to as the sustainability revolution.” Generation believes that this revolution is going to have the “scale of the industrial revolution” with the “speed of the technology revolution as ideas are so much quicker to proliferate in today’s age.” 

When it comes to the supply chain industry and shippers making pledges to become net-zero by 2040, the largest contributor to many of these companies’ carbon footprints sits within their own supply chains. “[Generation] has always been looking out for companies who are providing solutions today, where the product is better, faster, cheaper, and fundamentally a better value proposition and yet at the same time was doing all of that in a much more sustainable way,” said Joy. 

“Convoy really neatly sits in that bucket, where the solution they’re offering is equivalent, if not better, to other options available on the market today.” Joy continued on to mention that this was one of the key reasons Generation invested in Convoy back in 2019.

Partnership with a purpose

“There’s actually a lot of opportunities in the supply chain industry for collaboration,” said Dan Lewis. Dan went on to reference the recent announcement of Convoy for Brokers which allows other freight brokers and 3PLs to put their loads into the Convoy network providing more loads and convenience to drivers in the network. 

An example of how this collaboration can create efficiencies in freight transportation can be seen from the following example shared by Dan: “We send a driver from Seattle to Sacramento. They show up to Sacramento and are looking for a job to get back to Seattle. It may be that Convoy in our own 1st party network doesn’t have a job to get the driver back to Seattle. But if we open up our platform for others to put their loads into our platform as well taking advantage of our technology, then those loads become available to all of these tens of thousands of drivers using the Convoy app, they can then maybe find a job that is really convenient to get back to Seattle through another’s brokers network. Then together we are actually able to reduce waste because that driver was able to find a more effective way to find a job and doesn’t have to drive back empty.”

This is one of many examples Dan shared in regards to collaborative programs Convoy is running with both capacity providers and shippers to produce efficiencies in the supply chain while also reducing waste.

Many competitors have approached the Convoy team about Convoy for Brokers, asking why Convoy would open up their network to other Brokers and 3PLs. “We talk about it from the lens of the carriers. These truck drivers are simply trying to keep their trucks full and that’s our priority,” said Dan. Not only does this help brokers secure efficient capacity, many times it also helps them cover loads at a cheaper cost, while also having the potential to reduce wasted emissions.

An outlook for the future

What does the next 5-10 years look like in terms of sustainable solutions and progress made towards decarbonization? In Joy’s response to this topic, she brings up the fact that technology exists today that can make a material impact on decarbonization and reducing emissions in supply chains, and that this is not something that companies should wait for another 5-10 years to implement, nor can they afford to do so if they want to hit net-zero targets. 

Dan notes the massive impact electric vehicles and hydrogen fuel vehicles could have on reducing emissions in the supply chain, however, the mass adoption of these technologies are still years away. 

Dan believes that data and data sharing is the immediate key to sustainable supply chains. Through data, “you can tell stories and you can show that data to the participants in the industry and influence their decisions and their behavior and prove to them that there are cost savings and prove to them that there are efficiency savings. You can get them excited about having something to go back and show to their leadership and the sustainability groups they are a part of” that can make a real material impact.

Sustainability at Convoy

We are focused on reducing the billions of waste in trucking and supporting the communities where we live and work. Learn more about Convoy’s commitment to sustainability.

The post Convoy Headlines FreightWaves Net-Zero Carbon Summit Event on Earth Day appeared first on Convoy.

Over the next decade, the $1 trillion that companies spend each year to truck freight around the country will shift from traditional, offline approaches to digital-first strategies. These smart systems are easy to use, full of rich data insights, and optimized by machine learning algorithms. This pattern of digitization has played out in nearly every other industry, and it’s happening in trucking right now.

The trucking industry links more than 100,000 shippers across the domestic supply chain with a diverse base of more than 1 million carriers and 3 million drivers. It operates in silos with minimal data, opaque pricing, millions of empty miles, and lots of waiting around. This system no longer keeps up with the dynamic requirements of a healthy supply chain.

Trucking is shifting to connected, transparent, and data-rich systems that efficiently orchestrate across shippers, carriers, drivers, trucks, trailers, docks, yards, and more. Carriers and drivers experience higher truck utilization, fewer empty miles, and less wasted time. Shippers benefit with better reporting, more visibility, and real-time pricing and decision-making at lower total costs.

Freight Trucking in the New Digital Supply Chain

Convoy has spent the last seven years building this future of trucking for our customers by connecting small carriers and owner-operators onto a digital platform. This unique access to capacity and a rich stream of data for every load allows us to rethink how we run our trucking services and leads to countless innovations. We aren’t letting up anytime soon, and our recent announcement shows that some of the best investors in the world are behind us. Here are six critical areas in the transition to digitally-driven freight solutions.

1. True elastic capacity
2. Guaranteed coverage for contract freight
3. Democratizing access to freight to maximize efficiency – all carriers and owner-operators available for all freight
4. Reducing total costs with the data and insights generated from transportation
5. A ‘No empty miles’ mindset
6. Self-driving trucks teaming up with human drivers

1. True elastic shipping capacity

The one thing we can always count on in a complex supply chain is volatility. Whether it’s a backed-up facility, a swing in demand, moves outside normal patterns, or a new phase of the freight market cycle, transportation teams are constantly working to maintain access to high-quality service, reliable capacity, and fair prices.

We have invested in creating true elasticity — the real-time ability to dynamically activate trucks, trailers, and drivers to match needs — to provide a high level of service to customers and absorb the swings they experience in their business. For example, over the past several years, our Convoy Go program has become the most flexible drop & hook trailer option on the market. To achieve this, we use technology to continually analyze the number of trailers customers need at a given facility to satisfy upcoming loads. Our systems automatically route and rebalance thousands of trailers and trucks across a geography to ensure customers always have what they need. This elasticity lets facilities operate at peak efficiency, despite unexpected levels of demand. 

The investments we’ve made over the last seven years – in more than 50 machine learning models, predictive trailer routing, and automated backup and spot services for drop freight – provide the foundation for this future, enabling transportation teams to quickly flex their capacity in ways never before possible.

2. Guaranteed coverage for contract freight

In a fragmented industry where freight capacity and service levels are inconsistent, shippers maintain relationships and solicit bids from dozens or even hundreds of carriers to have redundant options, even in a small region or lane. Despite this significant undertaking, coverage can still be unreliable, and reacting to routing guide failure is a regular challenge for every transportation team. 

It’s critical that guaranteed coverage and its game-changing benefits become a reality for shippers. Coverage failures would become rare, dramatically simplifying procurement and operations. Systems would become more tightly integrated, and processes at facilities like dock scheduling and loading would be optimized. All of this would result in significant savings on the total cost of freight.  

At Convoy, we operate a network that reaches tens of thousands of owner-operators and small trucking companies every day — fully automated and more extensive than the traditional approach. Through this network, Convoy can match the needs of our customers in any market condition. Customers adopting Convoy’s Guaranteed Primary program are already receiving these benefits today, including keeping products on shelves, transparent pricing, and cost savings. 

Over the last 18 months, market volatility in freight RFPs has accelerated the shift toward this future state. Freight providers increasingly offer alternatives to the standard freight RFP tools and processes, and shippers are adopting dynamic pricing programs with guaranteed coverage, including Convoy’s Guaranteed Primary and Dynamic Backup.

3. Democratize access to freight to maximize efficiency – all carriers and owner-operators available for all freight

90% of trucking companies have fewer than six trucks and hundreds of thousands of drivers are owner-operators of their own rigs. These entrepreneurs are the backbone of the American supply chain, yet they face challenges not shared by larger counterparts: lack of access to consistent freight and high-quality, high-volume loads from national shippers, an inability to secure efficient drop and hook freight, or attractive dedicated or contracted runs, and opaque or unfair financial treatment. 

As more small carriers and owner-operators use technology platforms to plug into freight opportunities and plan their schedules, they will gain access to the same opportunities and safeguards as large trucking companies. Convoy’s app empowers drivers to service loads from the largest shippers, proactively plan their routes to know when they’ll be home with their families, and lets drivers create schedules that keep their truck full and earnings predictable. It’s still early; there is much more potential to help drivers and small businesses make decisions on the options that impact them most.

Since 2015, Convoy has been building toward this future. Programs like Convoy Go provide small carriers with access to more efficient and lucrative power-only loads. Hassle-Free Detention and QuickPay help carriers get paid quickly and easily. TruckYeah Savings provides financial economies of scale that enable carriers to save on fuel, factoring, and equipment. And through Convoy for Brokers, carriers have more ways to maximize utilization with loads from other 3PLs that have adopted Convoy’s platform to cover their demand. 

4. Reducing total costs with the data and insights generated from transportation

The data and insights generated through freight transportation create substantial value beyond the transportation of goods. Transportation teams increasingly rely on insights gathered from analyzing tender practices, facility operations, driver feedback, and more to increase efficiency and drive down costs. These insights are just the tip of the iceberg.

Digital freight networks like Convoy have systems orchestrating every step of the shipment lifecycle with real-time connectivity from tenders and spot boards to the inside of trailers and the cab of each truck. There is incredible potential to optimize inventory, warehouses, orders, and more by providing quick and accurate signals through real-time APIs, not human transcription. 

Today, some of Convoy’s customers run their daily list of orders through our systems, where we use our signals to consolidate orders into fewer trucks and more efficient routes with lower total costs. This is one benefit of dozens our industry will unlock in the years ahead.

5. Support sustainability in freight transport with a ‘No empty miles’ mindset

Waste benefits no one — it’s bad for carriers, shippers, and the environment. Today, 90% of S&P 500 companies invest in and report annual corporate sustainability goals, up from 20% a decade ago. In March, the SEC announced a climate disclosure proposal tying greenhouse gas emissions and indirect emissions to risk management. As sustainability continues to gain momentum in modern business practices, freight logistics represents a massive, largely untapped opportunity in sustainability. 

With 35% of all heavy-duty truck miles still being driven empty, technology-driven freight operations will become a meaningful and measurable contributor to companies’ sustainability goals. If the industry can achieve the same efficiency improvements that Convoy has seen on bundled shipments, which was shown to reduce the average empty miles of participating carriers from 36% to 19% (a 45% reduction), it would reduce carbon emissions by 40 million metric tons annually. That’s the equivalent of taking more than 8.6 million passenger vehicles off the road. 

Since our founding in 2015, Convoy has been a pioneer in sustainable freight. We’re leading the transformation toward a more sustainable future of freight through investments in technology like automated reloads, multi-load batching, and efficient appointment windows.

6. Self-driving trucks team up with human drivers

The mainstream adoption of self-driving trucks is many years away. As autonomous driving technology matures, the first way this technology will benefit the industry is by allowing trucks to run longer than the current limit of 11 hours of service per day that drivers must follow. Drivers will remain in the truck, but be able to hand off navigating the highway portions to the vehicle so that the human driver can go off-duty, rest, and reset their service hours (read more about my thoughts on self-driving trucks and human drivers here).

As self-driving trucks enter the market, we will see years of mixed fleets containing traditional and autonomous trucks of varying degrees, as well as mixed rules and regulations for fleet operators to follow. Whether a truck can drive autonomously will vary by its load, technology, location, current weather conditions, traffic situations, etc. Doing this effectively will require technology and techniques like machine learning and AI to consider these variables and optimize. This will be a significant opportunity for Convoy and an exciting area to partner in.

This shift in fleet management is a natural fit for digital freight networks like Convoy. The machine learning investments we’ve made in automated brokering and asset rebalancing are the foundation to managing the mixed fleets of the future.

The road ahead

This change is happening today, and I’m grateful for all our stakeholders’ involvement. To our drivers, dispatchers, transportation planners, logistics managers, procurement officers, supply chain executives, brokers, and partners – your insights and feedback continue to drive the work we do every day. 

The post America Needs a Digital Supply Chain and Trucking is Next appeared first on Convoy.

Survey highlights include key trends in trucking and new data insights, outlined below. Download the Sustainability in Trucking Snapshot Report to see the full analysis.

Carrier perspective on empty miles and climate change

Reducing empty miles is still a top priority for carriers

Inefficient truck routing and loading and unloading practices contribute to wasteful fuel consumption. Convoy research shows that 35% of truck miles may be empty miles. In this survey, the regional distance (100–400 miles) represents the biggest share of loads for both the owner operator and the dispatcher and driver groups. It is also this distance that drivers drive empty the most. A carrier that optimizes its freight logistics can save fuel, time and improve productivity, generating fuel cost savings and additional revenue. Trimming just 1% of empty miles from one long-haul truck can save over 100 gallons of fuel.

In this survey, 69% of respondents indicated that empty miles are very important to their business. Furthermore, compared to the response we collected in our previous sustainability in trucking survey of August 2021, a higher percentage of carriers believe reducing empty miles is even more important today. When breaking down the importance of empty miles by role, 63% of dispatchers believe that reducing empty miles is very important, a 5% increase from the previous survey. Similarly, 69% of dispatch drivers believe that reducing empty miles is very important, a 3% increase from the last survey.

Carriers feel increasing pressure to reduce carbon emissions

In our 2021 survey, 35% of respondents reported feeling pressure to reduce carbon emissions. In our 2022 survey, this number has increased to 38%. While previously the top cited reason for reducing carbon emissions was awareness of the environmental impact of carbon emissions, more recently respondents pointed to Government Regulation as the major reason for feeling pressure to reduce carbon emissions.

Views of the impact of climate change on trucking differ starkly by age group

Climate change is impacting trucking. About 61% of respondents said that climate change was an issue of some or a great deal of importance. The age of the respondent made a difference on their view of climate change. The youngest age cohort (aged 21 to 24) showed more concern about climate change, with 43% of respondents saying it was a great deal and 43% of respondents saying it was somewhat of an issue. Only 14% of individuals aged 21 to 24 said that climate change was not at all an issue. By contrast, the oldest cohort (aged 56 and over) indicated that almost one in four thought climate change was not an issue at all and another 15% said they thought climate change was not too much of an issue.

Carrier purchase considerations

Carriers heavily factor fuel economy in their purchase decisions

When considering their next truck purchase, 83% of respondents rated fuel economy as very important.

When examining how important fuel economy is in relation to the respondent’s planned timing for buying a new truck, the survey data suggests that fuel economy becomes more important the sooner the respondent plans to buy a truck. For respondents who planned on buying a truck within the next year, 86% said fuel economy was very important and 10% said it was somewhat important. In contrast, for respondents who planned on buying a new truck more than 3 years from now, only 77% said fuel economy was very important and 14% said fuel economy was somewhat important.

Additionally, respondents believe that higher Class 8 fuel economy standards now will significantly increase operating costs.

The carrier interest, or lack thereof, in electric trucks

When looking at the desire to drive an electric truck by how many years the respondent had been in the business, there’s a clear trend that the longer an individual has been in the business, the less likely they are to want to drive an electric/hydrogen truck. 

In looking at what electric/hydrogen truck respondents are most excited to drive, the Freightliner eCascadia comes out on top at 23%. The eCascadia is followed by Tesla at 18%, and Volvo at 18%. Rounding out the other brands were Kenworth at 12%, Peterbilt at 11%, Nikola at 3%, and Daimler Trucks at 1%. 

Notable respondent demographics

Gen X dominates the trucking industry

An aging fleet of drivers is one of the main reasons for driver shortages. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that the average age of a commercial truck driver in the US is 55 years old. In our survey, 45% of survey respondents were over 45 years old, with most respondents between 45 to 55 years old.

Gender differences vary based on carrier roles

Compared to the overall survey breakdown by gender, with 17% of respondents female and 82% male, there are significant gender differences when examining role type. The percentage of female respondents increases to 60% for the dispatcher role, decreases to 7% for the role of dispatcher & driver, and is lowest at 6% for owner operators.

Download the Sustainability in Trucking Snapshot Report to see the full data for sustainability trends in trucking.

Sustainability at Convoy

We are focused on reducing the billions of waste in trucking and improving the lives of truck drivers. Learn more about Convoy’s commitment to supply chain sustainability.

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“Our sustainability awards program prioritizes meaningful impact metrics that ‘move the needle.’ Given the massive carbon footprint of the trucking industry, Convoy’s ability to reduce empty miles and carbon emissions by 45% is truly worth celebrating,” commented Matt Harney, Founder of SEAL Awards.

Winners were selected by a panel of ten sustainability and ESG experts. At Convoy, our work is built on the mission to transport the world with endless capacity and zero waste. We are committed to creating a more efficient and sustainable freight trucking for everyone and are grateful to SEAL Awards for their recognition.

“To be recognized as a winner of the 2021 SEAL Business Sustainability Awards is a tremendous honor for Convoy as we continue to focus on driving new efficiencies and reducing waste in the U.S. trucking industry,” said Convoy’s Head of Sustainability Jennifer Wong. “Today, 35% of the trucks you see on the road are driving empty, generating more than 87 million metric tons of waste; if the industry as a whole were to adopt Convoy’s technology, CO2 emissions would be reduced by 40 million metric tons – the equivalent of taking 8.6 million passenger vehicles off the road for a year. Convoy is pioneering the movement in efficient freight and this award inspires us to continue innovating new sustainable opportunities for truck drivers and shippers.”

Convoy is recognized among other industry-leading organizations and high-growth startups, including Disneyland, General Motors, Salesforce, Samsung, Skullcandy, Mapistry, and Polestar.

Learn more about Convoy’s sustainability efforts and mission.

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The silver rating places Convoy in the top 25% of all the companies that EcoVadis evaluates. The award demonstrates the awareness and respect both companies have for sustainability, business ethics, the environment, human rights and sustainable procurement. 

Backed by a powerful technology platform and its actionable scorecards, EcoVadis provides benchmarks, insights and a guided improvement journey for environmental, social, and ethical practices.

The sustainable choice for our customers

As the most efficient digital network, serving shippers of all sizes, Convoy has a great responsibility for society and the environment. This is why Convoy has anchored sustainability in its core business strategy.

Convoy’s technology is already making progress in reducing carbon emissions by enhancing the ability to connect shipments more effectively. Convoy’s automated reload program reduces empty miles from the industry standard of 35% to 19% by bundling shipments into a single job for a driver. If the industry as a whole is able to achieve the same efficiency improvements that Convoy has seen on our bundled shipments, it would reduce CO2 emissions by 40 million metric tons every year.

United Nations Global Compact

Convoy is also a signatory to the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC). The UN Global Compact has a vision of a sustainable economy for the benefit of all people, communities and markets, today and in the future. It serves as a call to companies to align strategies and operations with 10 universal principles in the areas of human rights, labour standards, the environment and anti-corruption as well as the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). The SDG are at the heart of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which was adopted by all member states of the United Nations (UN) in 2015.

The future

Our sustainability progress is merely a step along the way of our long term mission of “transporting the world with endless capacity and zero waste.” We are mapping out a future pathway to support zero waste trucking and are working to embed a culture of assuming responsibility towards the environment and people at all levels of the company.

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Danny Gomez, Managing Director of Financial and Emerging Markets at FreightWaves and host of Net-Zero Carbon, recently sat down with Dennis Raffa, Program Lead of the Zero Waste World Initiative in North America for CHEP, to discuss how a pallet company founded in Australia during World War II is actively helping to create a “Zero Waste World.” 

Danny and Dennis discussed what CHEP does as it relates to the supply chain, challenges CHEP faces with regard to the supply chain both pre- and post-COVID, and how CHEP and Convoy are partnering to eradicate empty miles and ultimately create a Zero Waste World.

THE CHEP BUSINESS MODEL: CHEP helps customers move the most products and the most platforms across the globe. We are in over 60 countries working with top manufacturers and retailers where we have cooling platforms and regenerative platforms. CHEP was started back in World War II in Australia when the US Army had left pallet platforms, and a gentleman by the name of Walter Brambles had the bright idea of reusing these pallets in the shipping industry. Today CHEP is the global leader in re-leased pallet containers of all sizes. CHEP goes out and issues pallets to raw material suppliers and manufacturers who put products onto the containers and CHEP sends these pallets out to customers who then produce onto them. They will then send them downstream to retailers at the consumer level (if you have you ever been in a Costco or Walmart that blue pallet is a CHEP pallet) and what happens is once the pallet becomes empty of the finished goods, CHEP then collects the pallets in partnership with its retailers and we bring it back to CHEP service centers, inspect them, and then re-issue them again, so we continue to keep those pallets and containers flowing through the supply chain to provide that regenerative process instead of just a one-way asset where at the end of life or at the end of the supply chain it could go to landfill. (3:26)

HOW CHEP ADDRESSES CHOKE POINTS IN THE CURRENT SUPPLY CHAIN: From a reliability perspective, we’ve had our challenges, but we’ve worked with our customers to make sure we have the right products in the right areas to support their demand. We are operating a pooling model, so we’re constantly moving our pallets to different regions. Before the pandemic, we had seasonality issues, and we still do a little bit, but we also have the expertise to get the assets where we need to at specific points in time. If you think about produce season and heavy usage of pallets in the Texas market (south of San Antonio and Houston) and the California Central Valley region, as well as in southern Florida the produce spike is in the summertime where you’re harvesting and into the fall where you’re harvesting, and customers need to get these products across the US. So we’ve developed programs with our customers to get those assets to those areas to supply demand for our customers. We saw the pandemic coming and we’ve seen challenges on the retail side where they’re building inventory sitting on pallets longer and we’ve worked with them to keep those pallets moving in the supply chain. We’ve also brought inventory in so that we had enough inventory to supply the needs for manufacturing of these pallets in our supply chain. I would be lying if I said there weren’t challenges, but we’ve done our best communicating and being transparent with our customers and carriers and being up front with them to help better flow the product through the supply chain. (5:17)

WHAT PROMPTED CHEP TO LAUNCH ITS ZERO WASTE INITIATIVE: The program was launched about two years ago and CHEP has always been doing sustainability and zero waste, but the inflection point for us was what’s next and how are we going to take it to the next level? Two years ago when we launched this program we saw a need from our customers that waste was a problem in the supply chain and they wanted to do better or felt they weren’t doing enough, so we partnered with them to find different types of solutions in the supply chain. We sent a survey out to our customers and the top three things we constantly heard was packaging waste, transport waste, and overall process waste within the supply chain. This program focuses on those three pillars because that’s what the customers have told us is important to them in eliminating waste in their supply chain. As we all know, COVID brought light onto sustainability. There’s more focus on it. I read an article the other day where consumers are willing to pay a little bit more for a sustainable product. You know they’re willing to help the environment and do better. It’s all coming to light as people are starting to question what are you doing here from the consumer level, what are you doing to help the environment, what are you doing to do better and we had a head start two years ago, but COVID has really helped accelerate this program. (8:00)

HOW CHEP IS REDUCING PACKAGING WASTE: We’re teaming up with customers so when they look at reducing their packaging, how is it going to be impacted in the supply chain. When they reduce the plastic packaging or paper packaging that was more robust in the past, and they want to put less plastic in their products, what is that going to do to the product if a driver has to slam on his brakes and the unit load actually shifts in the trailer? It may create product damage so you have stretch wrap around it or you use dunnage (inflatable bags) to keep the product from shifting in the container. So we may be taking packaging out of the product itself but you’re adding additional packaging whether it be through the stretch wrapper, the dunnage, etc. We actually team up with our customers via our innovation center in Orlando where we can test the different types of packaging in the supply chain and see how it reacts in racking, how does it react to different climates, how does it react to vibration, etc., so before you make the packaging change and start shipping, you can see how it will function. The last thing we want is for these great packaging changes to happen and then it gets to the retailer and the load shifted, and there’s more product damaged and then now you have to take it back so you’re adding more transport, more packaging to redo everything, etc. so we look at that with our customers (11:28)

HOW CHEP IS REDUCING TRANSPORT WASTE: From a transport perspective with partners like Convoy, we actually look at where do we have dedicated lanes, where do we have short hauls, long halls, where are there empty lanes both within our supply chain and our customer supply chain where we can team up to fill those empty lanes and eradicate those empty miles. Where are those moves that don’t make sense that we can partner with — and not just with trucks — we are looking at how can we move our pallets into those high demand areas whether it be on barges, intermodal, how do we look at alternative transport that’s going unused or underutilized to capitalize on that? So we’ll team up with our customers and our carriers as well where we have these brainstorming session where we bring in the carrier, we bring in CHEP, and we bring in the customer and all three of us sit down to look to see what are the pain points with those empty miles and let’s do a network overlay and let’s see how we can fix that. (13:00)

HOW CHEP IS REDUCING PROCESS WASTE: From a process perspective, it is no surprise to anyone that labor is at a premium these days, so from a process perspective, it kind of all comes together with transporting packaging waste into the process piece. Customers are changing their packaging, so if there’s that product damaged at the retailer and then they have to resend it to a co-packer to have it reworked, what can we do there to eliminate that extra step in the supply chain from the process perspective so we’re not adding that additional labor. (13:50) 

HOW CONVOY AND CHEP PARTNER: Convoy does a good job of leveraging their technology and they are transparent too as a partner and they have some tools like their automated reload process which has been very valuable — especially with COVID — that’s been great from a transparency perspective. Their automated reload process has saved time in the supply chain and has eliminated that waste so we are partnering with them and looking at those empty lanes that I mentioned. Convoy may be running into a customer location, but then that customer is shipping product out and Convoy doesn’t necessarily have the visibility that CHEP does, so in those ideation sessions we bring that data together leveraging Convoy’s technology, CHEP’s technology, and then the customer’s authorization to look at those links. We see if Convoy is going in with a product and then turning around leaving empty. How do we team them up with our customers to haul our goods out and then the customer can use their own fleet or another carrier to move other goods, but then we get that golden triangle. That’s been something that we’ve developed with our carrier partners like Convoy in the supply chain, but it comes back to what they bring from a technology perspective. They’ve also worked with us with some of their products and tools where we’ve actually gotten driver feedback. You’ve mentioned some of the bottlenecks where we didn’t have visibility. We had the driver feedback at the location level where there were long wait times and it helped us raise awareness to a blindspot where we didn’t realize there were long driver wait times at certain service centers, so we were able to quickly identify that with Convoy’s partnership and the driver feedback through their process to go address that immediately and figure out what is the root cause, what is the problem, and how do we fix that to get these drivers moving quickly so that they want to go to a CHEP service center. It helped alleviate a lot of those blind spots so it has proven to be a great partnership with Convoy. (13:50) 

HOW CHEP COMMUNICATES ITS PROGRESS ON SUSTAINABILITY AND ZERO WASTE: My vision for this program is to be a conduit in the supply chain. We do a couple of things. We have a life cycle analysis that was created by an independent third party in conjunction with CHEP that looks at the CHEP pallet itself so it’s a life cycle analysis or when our customers use the CHEP pallet what is the benefit that brings? We have a whole solutions team that will go in and do these ideation sessions — someone for transport, someone from supply chain, for packaging on our side, as well as myself, but I come in and tie it all together with those benefits where we measure if it’s a transport piece where Convoy goes in, I mentioned filling those empty lanes so what does that equate to in carbon emission reductions? We actually have a calculator that looks at those carbon emission reductions. Now some of our customers like to use our life cycle analysis, many customers have their own, so we’re willing to work with them to dig into the data behind what ours looks like, what yours looks like, etc. LCAs are becoming very popular these days within the sustainability realm so everyone has one but it’s a preference with how do you use it, what do you want to use it for, so it’s also being transparent and we can get down to the granular level and look at what we are saving on emissions, what are we saving on labor waste, and then how do we get that out there? I want to get the word out that CHEP has pioneered this for a long time, but more and more customers are coming to us for a solution. They ask who can you get me in contact with to solve these issues, how can we partner with Convoy, are other characters out there? What I’ve seen that’s been a little bit unique since COVID is that from a competitor perspective, previously people didn’t want to share ideas with someone else because there’s so much competition, but when COVID hit and everyone was struggling to get goods to a customer, I saw competitors working with each other to deliver goods to the consumer. We can’t do this alone, you have to do it together, and that’s my huge message that I cannot talk about enough. What we need to do is leverage our powers within the supply chain to drive this change and get the word out and quantify it.

ADVICE ON WHERE AND HOW TO START ON A SUSTAINABILITY JOURNEY: There are plenty of networks out there, there’s a lot of data out there, and it can be overwhelming at times. Talk to people you know in your industry, talk to similar customers. CHEP is here to offer up consulting services as well. I work with some of our customers and we have a whole team that will work with our customers who are starting their journey and connect them with some of the folks out there. You can use your own life cycle analysis. I’ve seen it as simple as a spreadsheet that someone’s created because it is the first step of their journey, so they haven’t invested in some of these larger LCAs, but they’re trying to build it out. Lean on CHEP, lean on Convoy who has a team as well that focuses on sustainability. They’ve gone down this path before. I think that’s the one great thing coming from the commercial side of the business over to sustainability, it’s a partnership and everybody wants to help each other out because they want what’s best for the earth. I haven’t seen that in any other role before. Is it COVID? I don’t know, but it’s a change that I’ve seen coming in this role that everybody wants to partner to find out so there are plenty of resources out there. Take it one step at a time. You may stumble, you may get it wrong, but you know we’re here together. I have seen where people presented data and other people have pointed at that data and said, “well I would calculate it this way or I would look at it a different way have you tried this?” and they throw the ideas out there, so don’t be afraid to share your information with others and don’t be afraid to make those mistakes because you’re not going to get where you need to get without making those mistakes, but look at other people too for best practices. (22:40) 

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The value of reaching net-zero is manyfold. Companies that are able to develop sustainable business practices will have a competitive advantage over their counterparts as customers demand green alternatives. 

General Insulation, an insulation distributor that stocks and fabricates a wide variety of industrial, commercial and fire-stopping products for the construction market, shares this forward-thinking approach to sustainability. Ian Allison, General Insulation’s Transportation and Supply Chain Manager talked with Ashley (General Insulation’s Account Manager) and I about the value his company sees in reaching net-zero emissions sooner rather than later. 

Alex: Hey Ian, thank you for joining us! We have some questions prepared and are looking forward to learning about how General Insulation is thinking about sustainability and the initiatives your team is engaged with. 

To kick things off can you tell us about the responsibilities of your current role?

Ian: Sure thing. At General Insulation I am responsible for implementing new processes and developing or, in some cases, purchasing technology to create a more efficient transportation network. Ultimately, this provides cost avoidance throughout our supply chain and leads to a more reliable network for our manufacturers and distributors across the country. 

Alex: Awesome. Ian, throughout our conversations I have been impressed with your knowledge of General Insulation’s operations and the transportation space at large. Can you tell us about your career in supply chain and what you have seen as the biggest evolution in this sector over the years?

Ian: My career in supply chain began 15 years ago at North America’s largest 3pl – C.H. Robinson. While working as a Sales Executive for CHR, I had the opportunity to study, and help improve, a wide variety of supply chains. This experience gave me insight into how best practices from differing supply chains can be shared within an organization. This process increases overall productivity and leads to a culture of innovation within an organization. 

To answer the second part of your question, the largest transformation I’ve seen over the years is the widespread adoption of web-based technologies, starting with simple software products and evolving more recently into the interconnected IOT space of today. It’s pretty wild to think that not long ago shippers and carriers were exchanging documents via fax.

Alex: Speaking of innovation within organizations, I know you have a reputation for being an innovator. Can you tell us why you think innovation is important?

Ian: Well, I think it’s fairly well understood that if organizations don’t embrace change, the risk of disruption increases over time. Organizations and teams within them need to have the forethought to explore future outcomes. It is important to understand the tradeoffs associated with new technologies and digital strategies. In my experience with supply chains, this pursuit often is the gateway to cost and process improvements.

Alex: How has Convoy helped you to improve your supply chain and what cost or process improvements has General Insulation realized through our partnership?

Ian: GIC had a few carrier partners, but we were missing a way to easily measure the competitiveness of their rates. At our branches, employees had to email or call carriers for rates. It was an inefficient use of their time, and unreliable as well.  By partnering with Convoy we were able to easily introduce competition within our truckload supply chain. We could compare rates and get a high-level view. At the end of the day, we’re seeing cost-avoidance and process efficiencies—from digital rate requests, to rapid load tendering and BOL creation.

Alex: Ashley, is there anything you have worked with Ian and his team on that would be worth adding here?

Ashley: With the market volatility we’re seeing heading into this holiday season, shippers are having to rely on the spot market more than ever before. It can be challenging to get a truck and far too easy to overpay. General Insulation is a great example of a shipper that jumped in with all hands on deck (they have 20+ active users!), which is a true testament to how easy Convoy’s online platform is to use and implement for larger teams. 

Alex: Thanks for all the background information! Keeping in mind everything we’ve just learned, Ian, I’m curious to hear in your words how sustainability fits into General Insulation’s business model?

Ian: Well, being ethical is core to our mission at GIC—we’re ethical in every aspect of our business operations. Part of that means we embrace our role as stewards of the environment. When it comes to emerging trends and thinking long-term about our company strategy, running a net-zero supply chain makes a difference. Some of our customers have sustainability goals, and our adoption of sustainable practices has set us apart from competitors. More and more I think this is going to be a differentiator. 

Alex: Ian, in closing I’m curious to hear your perspective on what trend(s) you think all supply chain leaders should pay attention to this year? 

Ian: Blockchain has the ability to transform the transportation and supply chain industry through secure communication and transparency between partners—up and downstream. Gaps in data disappear and decisions concerning purchasing, logistics and customer management can be made holistically. Widespread adoption of blockchain in the supply chain space is probably years away, but organizations should begin to understand the steps needed to evolve to embrace that solution.

Alex: That wraps up all of our questions for today! Ian, I want to say a sincere thank you for taking the time to share your experience with us. 

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