Trucking Industry Launches Sustainability Program
The American Trucking Associations on Thursday launched a sustainability program for the entire trucking industry under the banner "Trucks Deliver a Cleaner Tomorrow." The first industry-wide environmental sustainability program, it will reduce fuel consumption and CO emissions.
"ATA has committed itself to a series of measures that can reduce fuel consumption by 86 billion gallons and CO emissions by 900 million tons for all vehicles over the next 10 years," said ATA President and CEO Bill Graves. "Our proposals are practical, reasonable, and doable. They make environmental sense, and they make common sense. The program is a continuation of environmental advances made by the trucking industry over the last quarter century, but there's no doubt that today's skyrocketing diesel prices give us an added incentive to roll it out across the industry, and for Congress to provide the support the program needs."
A new ATA report includes six key recommendations to reduce fuel consumption and addresses the impact of these activities on the environment. They are the equivalent of eliminating the CO generated by 9.6 million Americans for one year, about equal to the population of the Chicago netropolitan area. The recommendations are displayed on a new Web site, www.trucksdeliver.org.
The recommendations include setting governors on new trucks to limit speeds to no more than 68 mph and reducing the national speed limit to 65 mph for all vehicles, reducing engine idling, increasing fuel efficiency by encouraging participation in the U.S. EPA SmartWay Transport Partnership Program.
Several freight and trucking companies are participating, including Fedex Freight, UPS Inc., Schneider National, Titan Transfer Inc., and Con-way Inc. The report was developed by the ATA Sustainability Task Force, headed by Tommy Hodges, ATA Vice Chairman and Chairman of Titan Transfer, Inc.