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Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is incrementally taken seriously by businesses of all sorts – and that includes freight forwarders.
The European Commission defines CSR as 'the willing inclusion by businesses of social and environmental concerns in their commercial activities and their relations with stakeholders.'
So businesses that are aware of their CSR are likely to look to their freight company to try to minimize the environmental impact of their freight forwarding and international freight transport.
The British International Freight Association (BIFA) has highlighted that some freight forwarding companies are now looking to ensure that the environmental impact of freight forwarding can be kept to a minimum.
This includes educating customers on how to make freight transport more environmentally friendly. Many shipping companies have recently agreed to cut the speed of their container services by 10% and some UK – Irish ferries will also be going slower, making the shipping company customers wait a little longer for their freight forwarding but reducing carbon emissions.
Another area where freight forwarding companies are looking to reduce their impact on the environment is taking away for recycling the cardboard and other packaging used to protect goods during freight forwarding.
Where new warehouses and depots are being built by shipping companies, there is now more interest in developing brownfield sites rather than greenfield.
And at an infrastructure level, there is European government interest in developing the role of railways and inland waterways in freight transport, so as to reduce the impact on the environment.
By responding to growing interest in protecting the environment, the international freight industry is also able to make savings that can be passed on freight forwarding customers, due to the savings in fuel costs.
ICT has also made a difference to freight forwarders' impact on the environment, with a lot of the documentation and freight transport updates now being made electronically rather than using paper.
So how far will shipping companies go as they look to become more sustainable in the future?
Reducing the environmental impact of freight transport is a big challenge but one that the freight transport industry is rising to meet.
In future, it is likely that the international freight industry segment, as many other markets have already done, to include 'green' options for freight services, catering for the needs of those businesses that are demanding them.
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