Green seems to be everyone’s favorite color lately, and it isn’t even St. Patrick’s Day. The “green” that everyone is talking about has to do with energy efficiency and what kind of carbon footprint the goods and services that we use is leaving. It should be no surprise that the trucking industry is not immune to folks looking at them through green-colored glasses. The first step that businesses and consumers alike can do to check the energy efficiency of deliveries is to audit a paid freight bill.
In this consumer heavy society transportation is one of the world’s largest industries. Its areas of business include airplanes, barges, courier services, taxis, trains, trucks, ships, and warehouses. The entire logistics services industry is being scrutinized and evaluated to make it the most efficient. Trucking, a business that used to be mainly concerned
finding qualified drivers and controlling transportation costs, is now forced to audit a paid freight bill, recover overpaid freight charge, and everything in between.
When customers find themselves in the process of trying to find a way to reduce freight cost they are also looking for specifications and listings that tell what kind of a carbon footprint the company they are considering is leaving. While companies are trying to be good employers and work within unionization efforts they realize that they must also be environmentally conscience and truthful.
When consumers spend time carefully considering packing materials to cut costs and when they select bubble wrap because it is 75% less expensive than Styrofoam spacing and it’s recyclable, they will not tolerate spending their saved monies and carbon energy with a trucking company that does not do the same. While in the past 80% of shippers overpaid for shipping because they failed to compare services available and transportation times, consumer watch groups and federal energy regulators are stepping up their monitoring of anything that leaves a carbon footprint.
The big challenge facing the future of the global transportation business is lowering carbon emissions and therefore enhancing energy efficiency. In America., the transportation sector, created 28% of all carbon dioxide emissions in 2011. Consumer watchdogs and government regulators expect to see improvements. American trucking industries can lead the way in these changes. All nations face an enormous task when it comes to the cost and energy efficiency of transportation. Every country needs to maintain airports, highways, railroads, and waterways so they can not only handle, but also monitor commerce and passenger traffic efficiently. Government funds, unfortunately, will never be enough f to keep up with long-term needs.
If the American trucking industry can continue to find ways to save and limit energy costs and footprints, they can offer this technology to other area of transportation in this country and the world. while learning how to audit a paid freight bill and post audit freight invoices has often been the task of a small staff of trucking industry office workers, those tasks are now only a small part of a transportation business’s success. The world expects truckload shipping to lead the way in the process of being more “green.”