Assessing Environmental Decision-making in Freight Transport: A Cargo Owner Focused Rating System

Abstract

The rising global temperature is a pressing issue, governments and customers are demanding more environmental operations in mitigating the climate impact. The logistic sector is one of the most CO₂ intense industries, putting pressure on logistic actors, who must adopt environmental strategies to meet global goals. They do so by presenting environmental reports, using frameworks that focus on final outcomes. This thesis aims to address this gap by developing a standardized rating system that assesses and rates cargo owners decision-making processes in regards to environmental parameters outlined by the Five Lever Framework. The framework serves as the foundation for the rating system, which includes the levers: Activity, Modal Split, Vehicle Utilization, Energy Efficiency and Carbon Content of the Energy. A literature review provided the foundation for the study to define subcategories of the five levers. The methodology then focused on developing the model using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). In collaboration with expert input, the subcategories of the five levers were defined and weighted against each other through pairwise comparison. To test and validate the rating system, a single case study was conducted with a cargo owner through a dedicated workshop that was structured with predefined areas to reflect and evaluate on. The study demonstrated that the rating system, based on the Five Lever Framework, was both comprehensive and relevant, though it requires certain refinements. Its applicability is somewhat limited by the organizational size and maturity of the cargo owner, and it must also take into account the temporal dynamics of planning and operational trade-offs. Additionally, the findings suggested incorporating certain overlooked elements that are not currently addressed within the framework.