Convoy releases first-ever sustainability report

Convoy, a digital freight network, has released the company’s first corporate sustainability report. The detailed report highlights Convoy’s commitment to shipping responsibly and highlights the company’s accomplishments across key environmental and social areas in 2020, as well as new goals and commitments for 2021 and beyond.

The report is titled ‘Ship Responsibly’ and summarises key areas of focus for Convoy, including innovation, internal culture, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and improving the lives of America’s 3 million truck drivers.

Convoy’s commitment to sustainability includes the following goals for 2021:

• Preventing 3 million pounds of carbon emissions from entering the atmosphere in 2021, an 87% increase in the amount of carbon emissions saved by Convoy in 2020.
• Continuing to operate with net zero emissions, implementing decarbonisation strategies, and neutralising any remaining emissions with carbon offsets.
• Fostering diversity, equity, and inclusion in Convoy’s network by investing in a dedicated supplier diversity program to help diverse carriers gain access to more business.

Improving empty miles

CEO Dan Lewis and CTO Grant Goodale explained that each year, heavy trucks run 175 billion miles moving truckload freight in the U.S. Of these, 61 billion are empty miles, meaning a truck travels without a load, which contributes over 87 million metric tons of carbon emissions annually. 

“A big part of what we do every day is figure out ways to reduce waste in trucking because that’s better for the environment, shippers, and millions of truck drivers. I am very proud to share our first corporate sustainability report,” said Dan Lewis, Co-Founder and CEO of Convoy. “Sustainability is core to our company culture and baked into our mission of reaching zero unnecessary waste in transportation. We look forward to building on this for years to come.”

Additional highlights of the 2020 Ship Responsibly report include details of Convoy’s commitment to truckers, shippers, and the broader community in which we participate. In 2020, Convoy launched a series of major partnerships designed to improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in an unprecedented year, including:

• Joining forces with Salesforce to haul 500,000 COVID testing swabs to San Francisco area hospitals in the early days of the pandemic.
• Launching new collaborations focused on improving the lives of truck drivers, including partnerships with the National Minority Supplier Development Council and the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council.
• Partnering with Land O’Lakes, Inc. and other shippers to haul the equivalent of more than 1.5 million pounds of donated food for those in need to Feeding America food banks, the largest hunger-relief organization in the United States.
• Helping Jazwares, a global leader in consumer products with a longstanding commitment to furthering the education and development of children through play, haul 22,000 donated toys to the Boys & Girls Clubs of King County, Washington. 

Greener supply chains

As climate change becomes a bigger threat companies around the world are changing the way they work and pushing for greener supply chains. Reducing supply chain emissions is critical to delivering net-zero emissions and will require increased focus and strategies from both government and businesses.  

Medium and heavy-duty vehicles, powered by diesel fuel, represent only 5% of the vehicles on the road but currently account for more than 20% of transportation emissions in the United States. Convoy has recognised that significant reductions in truck emissions are essential to climate change mitigation efforts.

"We've already made significant progress to help our customers reduce emissions and ship responsibly, but the time has come for us to bring that same rigor and mission-driven focus to our operating model. The trucking industry's effects on climate change are undeniable and this commitment is a crucial next step in leading the industry forward." said Jennifer Wong, Head of Sustainability at Convoy.

As of December 31, 2020, Convoy has eliminated 2,195,585 pounds of carbon emissions from our roads. This is equivalent to preventing trucks from running 637,112 empty miles and using up 98,018 gallons of fuel.

(Image: Convoy)