These days, environmental and social concerns, regulations and taxation are becoming ever more of a priority. It's against this backdrop that CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) and its primary vector, the decarbonization of business activities, are gaining in importance with each passing day. It encourages companies to reduce their impact on the planet and its inhabitants on their own scale.

Becoming an eco-responsible organization doesn't happen overnight; it's imperative to initiate targeted, planned actions, then monitor the achievement of objectives at every stage.

What does eco-responsibility mean?

What does it mean to be eco-responsible?

An eco-responsible approach means integrating environmental protection measures into our activities and principles.
In the corporate context, these measures can take place at many levels and in many forms. According to ADEME (the French agency for ecological transition), a company is eco-responsible when it integrates environmental impacts into its decision-making criteria, for the improvement and management of all its processes.

Why become eco-responsible?

There are many reasons to adopt a sustainable development approach. All these reasons can be divided into 3 categories: ethical reasons, strategic reasons and legal reasons.

Ethical reasons: as a decision-maker and citizen, the most obvious reason for committing to an eco-responsible trajectory is personal conviction. Wanting to support causes such as preserving ecosystems, reducing waste or saving endangered species is reason enough to initiate change and adopt a more responsible attitude.

Strategic reasons: it's important to note that even if the reasons for taking part in the eco-responsible transition are strategic, they are no less positive for the environment. On the other hand, cases of greenwashing (which consists in presenting a falsely responsible and misleading image to the audience) do not fall into this category, as they are not real actions.

Strategic reasons include :

• Improving employee commitment
• Improving customer satisfaction
• Enhancing reputation
• Better market integration (especially in markets with stricter environmental regulations)
• Competitive advantage as a recruiter and with partners
• Productivity gains
• Cost reduction and the carbon tax base®.
• Risk reduction

Legal and commercial reasons: depending on the regulations in force, or the requirements of certain principals, it is necessary to comply with ecology-related standards in order to operate and/or maintain business in certain sectors.

Specific features of the freight transport sector

What's special about freight transport is that it's involved at every stage from design to end-of-life management: upstream and downstream of the production of goods and services, but it's also a service in its own right.

Because of its consumption of fossil fuels, the transport sector is responsible for a non-negligible proportion of CO2/GES emissions. It is therefore necessary to measure it, and imperative that transport players make commitments to limit their environmental impact. In road transport, for example, an eco-responsible project can lead to the choice of new vehicles, using other types of energy.

These actions can be deployed over the short, medium and long term. Beyond energy and technology, they also concern driver training (eco-driving) and the search for best practices between principals and carriers (massification, delivery frequency, triangular transport).

Key stages in the eco-responsible trajectory

Accurately calculate GHG emissions from transport

Precise measurement of GHG emissions is the key, founding stage in an eco-responsible trajectory; the TK'Blue platform gives transport players this visibility, and the tools for analysis, benchmarking, simulation and comparison of the environmental quality of logistics flows, which are the indispensable basis for setting up ambitious, serious reduction action plans.

Draw up a precise GHG emissions reduction action plan

It must be precise, exhaustive and achievable: this is a real challenge for the majority of players, who are used to considering only the cost and lead times of transport operations, and lack serious tools for measuring their environmental impact.

With TK'Blue, the solution is complete and immediately operational. Clients have access to a dynamic dashboard summarizing all performance indicators for their operations and transport service providers, along with monthly trends and a qualitative and quantitative benchmark. These data can be included in a report available to the company or to their own customers (forwarders). As a result, users can immediately draw up strategies to reduce their environmental impact, by implementing action plans and comparing the performance of several transport solutions in order to select those with the lowest GHG emissions.

Plan and control the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions

Planning is good, but controlling execution is essential. When it comes to ecology, it's not uncommon to see large, over-ambitious projects never see the light of day. At the risk of being accused of greenwashing, it's vital to properly size the objectives announced in the roadmap, and to meet the deadlines set.

TK'Blue provides principals with steering and decision-making tools that enable them to meet these two conditions: quantify, compare and make decisions to improve eco-responsible performance, then implement and monitor the execution schedule.

The advantages of TK'Blue certification for a carrier

Becoming a TK'Blue carrier means :

• Share with transport players a "Trusted Third Party" platform for exchanging information and data, enabling serious analysis of the quality of the offers made available, and of the anticipated or actual environmental impact of transport flows.
• Enhance the technological and environmental quality of its fleet in the eyes of shippers and principals, by calculating its carrier index (TK'T and TK GHG).
• Online tools to identify areas for fleet improvement and define an eco-responsible improvement strategy for the short, medium and long term.

Day-to-day action in various areas

Reducing our environmental impact also means meeting different objectives on a day-to-day basis, which will affect several aspects of the organization.

Here are a few examples of actions whose impact can be measured quickly:

• Maintain your fleet: maintaining a quality fleet also means being less polluting. Whether in terms of fuel consumption or environmental pollution, a well-maintained fleet reduces GHG emissions and negative externalities (Nox, SOx, particulates, noise, soil pollution).
• Training teams: training is an essential tool for ensuring that all company employees adopt an ecological approach. Training drivers in eco-driving, for example, ensures significant long-term benefits for carriers (-10 to -15% in fuel consumption).
• Review installations concerning insulation and sources of heat/cold in the premises: this aspect is essential for energy consumption. Choosing to install automated control systems in rooms where water and electricity are heavily used generates both savings and a lower environmental impact.
• Raising staff awareness of waste sorting and waste management: training on these subjects not only helps to fully involve staff in the company's CSR policy, but also reduces the amount of paper (e.g., by abandoning scrap paper) and packaging, which account for a large proportion of the waste produced by companies. This reduction in waste automatically leads to savings.

Raising awareness and training employees

Organizing events and training around the theme of ecology is an excellent way of involving teams in the company's eco-responsible journey. This is particularly essential for organizations that have the courage to take a new, highly committed direction (reducing impact instead of profit at all costs); communication with teams is crucial to ensuring the success of commitments.

Stand out from the crowd

Being an eco-responsible player increasingly represents a competitive advantage.
For principals, choosing carriers with low levels of greenhouse gas emissions is a necessity: lowering Scope 3 emissions and thus meeting their own commitments to reduce environmental impact and their Carbon Tax Base®.
For an equivalent product or service, eco-responsible commitments represent a serious and increasingly significant competitive advantage.

Keep abreast of regulatory developments; stay one step ahead of the competition. Example of ISO 14 083

Keeping abreast of the latest developments in the field of sustainable development gives you the opportunity to get ahead of the game: before environmental laws and decrees are passed, the issues are widely debated. So, in some cases, keeping up to date can help you anticipate future directives.

The recent publication, in March 2023, of the ISO 14 083 standard, a common methodology for quantifying and reporting GHG emissions resulting from the operations of passenger and freight transport chains, is a good example. It will have an immediate impact on the practices of transport operators, as well as on all entities that call on transporters upstream or downstream of production from this year onwards.

GHG emissions from transport operations and refrigerant leaks must now also be taken into account when calculating emissions from transport operations. No calculator other than TK'Blue takes these new requirements into account, and contractors will not be able to make do with incomplete calculations for long. Will they risk a tax reassessment for incomplete declaration of transport GHG emissions?

Keeping up to date is therefore essential to remain compliant and... competitive!

Numerous laws, regulations, tax rules and recommendations are adding to the reference base of the eco-responsible carrier every day. You shouldn't be afraid, but on the contrary, you should be a good pilot for your company by setting yourself up as a forerunner in this field of compliance! Customers will remember.

The expertise and services of the TK'Blue platform will finally be put to good use in 2024: taxation and low-carbon trajectories mandatory.

Since 2012, TK'Blue's European governance has played a major role in developing and communicating solutions to better understand and reduce the harmful effects of freight transport and logistics: monetization of negative externalities, Bureau Veritas certification for GHG information, Afnor Spec X43-072 for e-commerce, ISO 14 083, ISO 14 067);

This expertise has enabled it to maintain its position as a leader in compliance, and to continue to provide tools and services that are factually ahead of the market due to the slow deployment of real fiscal and regulatory constraints for the strict application of rules for the precise measurement of GHG emissions from transport operations.

Fortunately, after 12 years of sluggish motivation on the part of the players involved, due to undemanding regulations with no real enforcement, and consequently actions to reduce the environmental footprint that are still very incidental in relation to the priority still given to the price/delivery time pair for transport operations, 2024 sees the advent of the price/quality/carbon weight® triptych in the choice of players.

The environmental criterion is now analyzed in the light of demanding regulations (decree 982-2022, CSRD: significant, demonstrable and auditable reduction trajectory), very costly taxation (ETS and MACF), and therefore a new requirement for a low-carbon trajectory on the part of princip als (I must reduce my "carbon weight", which depends essentially on the "carbon weight" of my purchases. So I'm putting pressure on my suppliers to provide me with a precise measurement that can be relied on by third parties, enabling me to verify their Carbon Competitiveness® and thus initiate the positive carbon discrimination that is essential in my purchasing).

The authorities are already asking importers to fill in a new "Carbon" declaration for each import.They must indicate either an average amount of GHG emissions for the product or raw material concerned, taken from the Carbon base or another source, or the true emission factor (PCF according to ISO 14 067) of its production. It must also add the amount of GHG emissions from shipping (which TK'Blue does), plus those from handling and refrigerant leaks (also done by TK'blue ISO 14 064, 14067 and 14 083).

It is therefore important to better understand and explain to transport players the real basis for calculating these ETS, and what has already become compulsory in terms of declaration and payment of taxes for importers of raw materials, cement, aluminum, steel, etc., and the extension of these obligations to semi-finished and then finished products in the coming years.

That's how they'll finally be serious about choosing the different transport solutions available on the market to reduce their Carbon Tax Base®.

• Modal shift
• Higher-capacity vehicles
• Decarbonized energy
• Best carriers (emission intensity/T.Km)
• Improved fill rate
• Lowest empty run rate

The TK'Blue platform is the only one capable of making these complete, compliant calculations, and of providing simulation and comparison tools that enable serious action plans to be launched.

Communicate your eco-responsible and environmental commitments

CSR communication, in particular the eco-responsible commitment plan, is essential.

Indeed, even if simply acting in a more environmentally-friendly way is an end in itself, communicating CSR performance data to stakeholders has many other benefits: enhanced reputation, customer satisfaction, employer brand.

This commitment is a real competitive advantage for which there's no reason not to communicate if the figures announced are serious and auditable.

Moreover, in certain cases, communication on this subject is mandatory: in France,companies with more than 500 employees are obliged to communicate their carbon footprint® and commitment to reducing their emissions. Using the TK'Blue platform facilitates the collection process and, above all, the quality of measurement of GHG emissions from transport operations, which weigh significantly in the Scope 3 of many companies.

• There are a number of solutions available to those in the freight transport sector who want to become eco-responsible.
• Some only wish to commit to signing a charter to reduce their environmental impact on the State. This is a first step, but it does not meet the new requirements for precise, auditable measurements.
• TK'Blue also offers a comprehensive solution for collecting, calculating, reporting and helping to make decisions on reducing GHG emissions, tailored to each transport player: contractors and service providers work together on the platform to achieve a common goal of reducing emissions for the benefit of the company, the community and the environment.