Has the freight transport sector in general started its transition towards CSR?
Companies are increasingly evaluated on their extra-financial performance. Whether it is a legal or voluntary obligation, we are witnessing a growing awareness of the freight transport sector about its environmental and social impact. The sector is especially committed and voluntary in environmental matters and the results are concrete and forceful.
According to figures from the Ministry of Ecological and Solidarity Transition, the TRM has mobilized widely against global warming and in favor of air quality, since in 20 years it has reduced its CO2 emissions by almost a quarter. Today trucks represent only 5.7% of CO2 emissions in France.
This environmental performance is possible thanks to the efforts to renew carrier fleets and the use of energy efficient vehicles. The fleet of CNG trucks has increased notably.
How do you internalize this theme in Van and Truck?
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is defined as the integration of social and environmental concerns into your business activities and relationships with stakeholders.
Therefore, a company that practices CSR will seek to have a positive impact on society and be economically viable.
A CSR approach is still too often perceived as a limitation, while the benefits are numerous. In fact, it is also a source of improvement in performance, competitiveness, brand image and helps attract and retain talent.
Therefore, we internalize this issue very naturally in our daily decisions, considering that it constitutes a real opportunity. Sustainability and profitability are omnipresent in all our compensations.
Our CSR approach encourages us to review the way we operate and our processes. However, we are not yet achieving savings that can be passed on to our expenses and therefore our selling prices. It is a medium-term bet, however at this time the additional cost of the vehicles weighs more than the savings made.
Have you established specific indicators that allow you to measure the effectiveness of the actions that characterize you and thus improve them if necessary?
From an environmental point of view, we are renewing our entire fleet of heavy and super heavy vehicles using biogas. Already 75% of our fleet runs on biogas. To do this, we calculate our CO2 emissions in kilograms per kilometer travelled. Diesel vehicles emit an average of 3.16 kgCO2/litre, while bioCNG vehicles only emit 0.61 kgCO2/kg consumed. That’s 80% less CO2 for bioCNG compared to Diesel.
We also work every day to reduce the number of empty kilometers traveled and fuel consumption. This is done using a TMS and on-board computing. To do this, we analyze the KPIs of kilometers traveled in CA and our fuel consumption in relation to the kilometers traveled monthly.
At the social level, we carry out a QVT approach: We are committed to the development of the women and men that make up our team. We value the professional development of our employees with the implementation of training. We favor social dialogue, employ people with disabilities and make the necessary adaptations. We evaluate the impact of our approach in relation to our billing, our work accident rate, our absenteeism rate and our customer satisfaction rate that undeniably results from it.
What goals have you set for 2023?
We are going to finish renewing our fleet, so that it is 100% green by the end of 2023.
We are currently working on the “responsible transport and logistics” label. This “Responsible Carrier” label aims to submit us to the ESG rating, which is based on the three evaluation criteria of Environment, Social and Governance to establish our extra-financial performance. This annual qualification will allow us to engage in a progress dynamic to nurture a positive and committed image in a logic of attractiveness of our commercial brand and employer.
This content was produced with SCRIBEO. The BFMBUSINESS editorial team was not involved in the production of this content.
Source: BFM TV
