This may seem a slightly unlikely article for me to be writing at first. Working in the road transport industry as I do, many people assume it is automatically impossible to have a green conscience. This isn’t surprising, given that my job depends on hundreds of haulage vehicles dragging loads up and down the country, producing all those environment damaging carbon emissions along the way. Actually, the truth is that my job allows me to be both a vocal green advocate and a road haulage representative while still helping me claim a regular salary. No, I haven’t invented a magical device that changes exhaust emissions into pure oxygen – it’s simply thanks to the nature of the freight exchange.
It works like this: under normal circumstances, owner operators or haulage companies manage their own loads with their customers, make their delivery and then return home to the depot for the next load. Environmentally and on a human level, this is in no way efficient. The driver is, in effect, only being paid for the outbound journey, and in these times when the price of fuel seems to be rising on an almost daily basis, this is financially crippling. Now consider a freight exchange – a network of suppliers and haulage drivers/companies who distribute their loads between them meaning that the return journey can contain another job. This means the trip is paid for (both ways) and therefore the haulage company is not operating at an inefficient loss (even for a minute) and profits can rise.
All well and good, but this still isn’t looking particularly environmentally friendly is it? Wait, I’m getting to that part.
Now, if this return load is being distributed back to someone who is already out on the road, it won’t be given to an owner operator for whom that would be the sole purpose of the trip. This means that there are less wasted journeys (every mile involved has a delivery attached) and therefore less unnecessary carbon emissions all over the place. Better still, if this collaboration for efficiency continues across the industry, then less road haulage vehicles will be required to shift all the work, and we may even see the decommissioning of these carbon-emitting behemoths. The environment will surely jump for joy.
Unlike most environmentally friendly solutions which require an element of self sacrifice and extra work, the freight exchange actually creates benefits across the board: the haulage companies and owner operators make more money, the roads get less congested and the environment becomes less polluted. Efficiency shines through and everybody wins – and for that reason, we have seen impressive pick up for our online freight exchange for the 7.5tonne and above market: Haulage Exchange.
I can’t say whether our customer base is growing for monitory or environmental reasons (it’s probably both), but whichever it is, the gradual migration to Haulage Exchange and other freight exchanges is great news for the environment. And if our drivers save themselves significant money as well, then all the better. What harm is a little incentive when the environment is at stake?
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