It’s not at all difficult to understand why fleets are interested in participating in the SmartWay Partnership:
assistance in identifying proven opportunities for improving efficiency; the ability to demonstrate efficiency to potential customers, thereby qualifying to do work for environmentally conscious shippers; and, of course, reducing fuel costs.

But what’s in it for shippers, many of which also have their own private fleets? Briefly, participation in SmartWay helps such companies choose the most efficient carriers available to them, assess optimal mode choices to get their cartage to its destination and reduce the carbon footprint resulting from transportation activities. In addition, the EPA ranks and publicizes partners’ performance in the SmartWay Partner List. Superior performance earns the partner the right to use the SmartWay Partner logo, which indicates a corporate commitment to environmental sustainability.

Any company that ships or receives items delivered by truck or rail transport is eligible to participate in SmartWay as a shipper partner. To become a SmartWay shipper, a fleet begins by using the Freight Logistics Environmental and Energy Tracking (FLEET) Performance Model for Shippers to quantify its current environmental performance level. It also commits to ship at least 50% of its goods using SmartWay carriers. A list of such carriers is available on the SmartWay website, making it easy to identify and select carriers who are committed to fuel efficiency and can provide the tools needed by a shipper to track progress towards its goal of environmental improvement.

By using the FLEET performance tool, a shipper can:

• Determine emission rates for CO2, NOx and particulates for its transportation network;

• Evaluate individual transportation providers based on their emission rates;

• Estimate reductions due to reducing miles or weight in its transportation network using the emission rates of its own carriers;

• Evaluate mode switching impacts across all emissions;

• Display results via internal shipper distinctions, such as inbound/
outbound freight, by divisions and other metrics;

• Determine its SmartWay shipper score and logo eligibility.

The SmartWay Partnership has developed and recommends that shipper partners adopt strategies designed to help them improve their environmental performance on an ongoing basis. These include:

• No-idling policies at distribution centers and loading facilities;

• Optimizing loading, routings and scheduling to reduce truckload miles;

• Optimizing packaging and loading to reduce weight;

• Optimizing modal selection to ship goods.

SmartWay is an effective partnership of diverse members—the EPA, freight shippers and carriers, and logistics companies—to voluntarily improve fuel efficiency and reduce environmental impacts from freight transport. Participating companies benchmark their current freight operations and identify technologies and strategies that can help them reduce their carbon emissions. They then track the reductions of emissions they achieve, project future improvement and report these annually to SmartWay.

Currently, over 2,900 corporations, including virtually all of our country’s largest truck carriers, all large rail companies and many of the top Fortune 500 companies, rely upon SmartWay’s supply chain accounting tools and methods. All of these companies are able to demonstrate to customers, clients and investors that they are taking responsibility for the emissions associated with the transportation of their goods, are committed to social responsibility and sustainable business practices and are reducing their carbon footprint.

If your company is not yet a SmartWay partner and you are interested in more information, visit epa.gov/
smartway/partnership/shippers.htm or send an e-mail to [email protected], or call SmartWay at (734) 214-4767.