New compendium of interventions to transform freight transport and logistics is out
SLOCAT and the Kühne Climate Center have developed a comprehensive compendium of policy and financing interventions needed to deliver intermodal, low-carbon, efficient and resilient freight transport and logistics. This compendium provides clear, actionable steps for relevant stakeholders to translate a vision for a greener and better system into reality.
Joined by many other organisations, POLIS has co-initiated the Manifesto for intermodal, low-carbon, efficient and resilient freight transport and logistics, launched in May 2024 at the first United Nations Global Supply Chain Forum organised by United Nations Trade and Development and the Government of Barbados. The Manifesto was a response to a self-evident truth: current models for freight transport and logistics need to undergo significant transformations to help economies and societies achieve real environmental, economic and social sustainability. Now, SLOCAT and the Kühne Climate Center have taken a step further by translating the vision of the Manifesto into an overarching compendium of policy and financing interventions to be implemented.
While the Manifesto served as a call for action addressing governments and businesses, the compendium provides them with ready-to-use, actionable steps to deliver immediate wins and trigger long-term transformations. In the compendium, stakeholders will find the dos and don'ts to drive the transformation of freight transport and logistics through complementary 'best-value' policies and investment approaches.
Five clusters of highly complementary interventions
The suggested interventions compiled by SLOCAT and the Kühne Climate Center drawing on the knowledge of numerous transport organisations—including POLIS—are to be understood and applied in a comprehensive and integrated fashion. The maximisation of effectiveness and benefits lies precisely in the synergies between the different interventions, even where they cannot be implemented in a short time frame.
What are these interventions about?
- Ambitious, science-based targets, regulations, policies, and standards: If current trends continue, freight transport-driven emissions will double by 2050 compared to 2019 levels. Current transport policies and measures need to be scaled up and complemented to bring transport on the right path towards global decarbonisation goals while also making the sector more resilient to ongoing and foreseeable impacts of climate change. Freight transport plays a critical role in this picture, yet it receives limited attention in current policies and standards—a shortcoming that can be turned into a great opportunity. How? By setting CO2 emission reduction targets for freight transport and defining standards for the resilience of freight transport infrastructure, just to name two 'best value' interventions.
- Economics, finance, and investments: Large gaps remain between existing economics, finance and investments in freight transport and logistics and the levels needed to steer adequate transformations, especially across low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) which struggle to attract international climate investments. Considering the prospects for transport infrastructure and services' rapid growth, it is crucial to take action in this decade to avoid locking in inefficient and carbon-intensive investments in infrastructure which would inevitably entail costly retrofitting interventions in the future. What should and should not be done? Among other points of attention, stakeholders should step down from investments that are not aligned with the Paris Agreement and re-direct funds collected from inefficient and polluting services to support efficient, green freight transport and logistics solutions.
- Integrated planning and operations: The high fragmentation and lack of coordination that characterises freight transport and logistics systems from 'source to end user' leads to avoidable inefficiencies and negative externalities. Better integrated planning would help cut these negative impacts by reducing transport demand and thus shortening supply chains. Zero-emission zones and sustainable urban logistics plans are key frameworks within which authorities can boost the integration of planning and operations, waking away from fragmented and siloed approaches.
- Mandatory, standardised, and transparent tracking, reporting and evaluation: To address any issue, you first need to be able to measure it. However, freight logistics is embedded in a highly complex and fragmented system involving a broad range of stakeholders across regions with a strong presence of small operators exposed to intense competition. This results in a lack of mandatory, unified, and standardised approaches towards impacts' tracking, reporting and evaluation, with most initiatives being regional in scale and voluntary in nature. A first step to address this could be adopting standardised approaches for GHG emissions, climate and sustainability impacts accounting for all freight transport modes and across the supply chain.
- Data, research, technology, innovation, and capacity building: Effective policymaking and investment decisions for the transformation of freight transport and logistics feed on data, research, technology and innovation. However, in the freight transport and logistics sector, the often scarce data available tends to be concentrated in the hands of large private operators. The lack of access to data and technology is even more pronounced in LMICs. Promoting technical assistance for North-South and South-South knowledge and technology transfer and cooperation is essential to fill these gaps, while partnerships and programmes should not perceived as additional efforts but rather as great opportunities.
To explore all the suggested interventions and the actions to be stopped under each cluster, read the full compendium here.
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