Logistics giant CH Robinson is paving the way for more sustainable supply chains by providing technology and data that any company can use to reduce its carbon footprint.

Emissions IQ is a free, self-serve tool for its customers to show instantly a company’s carbon emissions across all forms of transportation globally.

Formed through a collaboration with MIT and the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), it gives companies a standard way to measure the emissions of their partial truckloads. And it provides access to data for companies to benchmark their carbon output against their industry and other shippers.

In its pilot phase, Emissions IQ helped 125 companies reduce their carbon emissions by a total of 350,000 metric tons of CO₂ equivalents.

“You can only change what you can measure,” said CH Robinson’s chief human resources officer Angie Freeman. “Even companies committed to sustainability have struggled to capture their emissions across complex, multi-faceted supply chains. By putting useful technology and data at their fingertips, we’re not only increasing the transparency of emissions in our industry, but we’re surfacing the best strategies for customers to make meaningful carbon reductions right now.”

Grappling with UN sustainability goals, regulatory requirements and consumer demand, companies have never been under more pressure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in their supply chains. A recent CH Robinson research study revealed that sustainability is shippers’ second biggest pain point in 2021, and the number of companies planning to take action to reduce their carbon footprint has doubled since last year.

But to cut transportation emissions, companies first need to be able to measure them. Most aren’t equipped to do that easily across lorry, rail, air and ocean transportation. For smaller shipments that share a lorry with other companies’ goods, a standard for measuring hasn’t even existed. Without the necessary tools and data, many companies haven’t been able to pursue carbon reduction at all or are investing a lot of time and effort that could be automated and eliminated.

Emissions IQ, the latest innovation from CH Robinson’s tech incubator Robinson Labs, is a tool that automatically calculates emissions and provides an easy visualisation of a shipper’s carbon output. Emissions analysis across all transportation modes is available from CH Robinson now, and all modes will be available within the self-serve tool once ocean and air are added later this year.

Accredited to use the Global Logistics Emissions Counsel (GLEC) framework, Emissions IQ provides shippers’ data that are trusted and universally accepted.

Tempur Sealy – a designer, manufacturer and distributor pf bedding products – is already benefitting from the sustainability tools.

“One of the most challenging aspects of our commitment to achieving carbon neutrality by 2040 is quantifying the emissions of our logistics operations and implementing strategies to reduce them,” said Scott Vollet, Tempur Sealy EVP. “CH Robinson’s advanced technology and thorough analysis highlighted opportunities to improve the efficiency of our supply chain, and their team provided the expertise to help us act on those insights. By making our supply chain more efficient, we reduced domestic carbon emissions by nearly 1000 metric tons of CO₂ equivalents and saved over $150,000 in just three months. We’re on track to quadruple that this year.”

To help companies address the emissions of less-than-truckload (LTL) shipments – which have skyrocketed because of the ecommerce boom – CH Robinson funded a project with MIT’s Center for Transportation & Logistics. That became the basis for a collaboration with EPA’s SmartWay programme to establish a method specific to measuring those emissions.

Accounting for the extra kilometres and higher fuel consumption of a lorry making multiple pickups and deliveries, CH Robinson is sharing this data model with the EPA to incorporate into its online tools. Companies will be able to get a calculation of their LTL emissions instantly.

While eliminating the time and effort of calculating emissions, Minnesota-based CH Robinson is also giving companies a way to benchmark against others and track their progress over time. With a worldwide network of nearly 200,000 customers and carriers, CH Robinson offers one of the largest sets of emissions benchmarking data in the industry. This information, combined with the logistic firm’s global sustainability consultants, gives companies building blocks for creating more sustainable supply chains.

“We’ve helped companies improve how they transport their goods for decades, constantly looking to reduce waste and improve performance in the supply chain,” said Freeman. “A more efficient supply chain is by nature a more sustainable one. As one of the world’s largest logistics platforms and the largest mover of truckload freight in the world, we’re in a position to create real impact on emissions now and in the future for our customers, our industry and our planet.”

With $21bn in freight under management and 19 million shipments annually, CH Robinson is one of the world’s largest logistics companies. With the combination of its multi-modal transportation management system and expertise, it uses the information to deliver smarter services for more than 105,000 customers and 73,000 contract carriers.