Client€3B Global Speciality Chemicals Company
SprintA 10 week sprint
Fieldwork301,176 shipments · 4 transport modes · 5 methodologies assessed
Supply Chain and Sustainability
The number had never been calculated
A chemicals company had to report the carbon emissions of its outbound logistics and had no way to calculate them. Not a bad number, no number. The sprint built the method, ran it across a full year of shipments, and handed back a manual and a template so the company could do it again itself the following year without us.
185.6k
Tonnes of CO2e calculated for one year of outbound logistics
301,176
Shipment records processed across four transport modes
68%
Of the total sat in road freight alone
2
Reusable deliverables handed over, a manual and a template
A note on sourcing. Every figure here comes from a SprintlyWorks client engagement. Clients are described, never named. Where a figure is identified, modelled or indicative rather than banked, the line says so.
01
Reporting requires a number, and there was not one
The obligation was Scope 3 Category 4, upstream transport and distribution: goods moved from suppliers to the company where the company pays the freight, and products moved to customers where the company pays. Transport the customer pays for falls under a different category and was out of scope.
What had to exist at the end and did not exist at the start was a total in tonne kilometres and in carbon dioxide equivalent for the whole year, split by transport mode, by region, by destination country and by product line, each with an intensity factor, produced by a method the company could re-run.
Five methodologies and frameworks were assessed before any calculating started. Two calculation approaches were tested and one was discarded, because the fuel efficiency route needs freight provider data the company does not hold. The intensity factor route was the one that could actually be run.
02
Where the emissions turned out to be
The year came out at 185.6 thousand tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent. Road carried 126.8 of that, 68 per cent, against maritime at 42.5, rail at 12.8 and intermodal at 3.5.
Road dominates for two reasons at once. It carries the most shipments, roughly 249,000 of the 301,176 processed, and it is the most carbon intensive mode at 78.9 grams per tonne kilometre against 23.7 for rail, 23.4 for intermodal and 15.6 for maritime.
Six product lines carry 80 per cent of the emissions. One of them alone is 36 per cent of the total and 42 per cent of all shipments. That concentration is the useful part for anyone who has to reduce it.
The baseline
One year of outbound logistics, by mode
Calculated from 301,176 shipment records using published intensity factors. A calculated baseline, not a metered measurement, and not a reduction achieved.
| Mode | Emissions, thousand tonnes CO2e | Share | Intensity, gCO2e per tkm |
|---|---|---|---|
| Road | 126.8 | 68% | 78.9 |
| Maritime | 42.5 | 23% | 15.6 |
| Rail | 12.8 | 7% | 23.7 |
| Intermodal | 3.5 | 2% | 23.4 |
| All modes | 185.6 | 100% | 36.9 |
How to read this → The mode with the smallest share of emissions is not the cleanest one. Rail is more intense than maritime and less intense than road, and it moves far less freight than either.
SprintlyWorks analysis
03
The result that surprised everyone was regional
By absolute emissions the ranking is the one you would expect: the two largest markets carry three quarters of the total. By intensity it inverts. The two largest markets run at roughly 46 grams per tonne kilometre while the two smaller ones run at 19 and 17.
That is not because the smaller markets are cleaner. It is because their freight goes by sea, which is the least intense mode per tonne kilometre over long distance.
Look only at road and it inverts again. Road intensity in the two large markets is around 73 to 75 grams, and in the two smaller ones it is 142 and 145, because the published default truck sizes there are smaller and the activity data behind them is thinner. Three different rankings from one data set, depending on which cut you take, which is precisely why the method has to be written down.
04
The assumptions are the method
Maritime distances do not come out of a system. Fifty one containerised lanes and all fourteen non containerised lanes were calculated by hand, covering 31 and 41 per cent of shipment weight respectively, and the average from those was applied to the remaining containerised lanes.
Two data decisions are on the record because they change the answer. A six per cent uplift was applied to European rail tonne kilometres so that a single published intensity factor could cover two wagon types, chosen after running the calculation both ways. And duplicate records inflating North American rail by five per cent were left in, with the client accepting that rather than cleaning them.
A further dozen assumptions sit behind the total: container weights excluded, a 70 per cent average load factor for containerised sea freight, empty container trips excluded, an assumed electricity and diesel split for rail by region, default vessel classes, empty return legs not counted. None of these is hidden and none of them should be.
05
What the client was left holding
A calculated 2019 baseline by mode, region, country and product line. A calculation manual in six chapters. And an Excel template in three sections that takes the shipment data in and returns the emissions out, so the exercise can be repeated internally each year.
One instruction travelled with it: do not reuse this year intensity factors as next year defaults. They describe one year of one company shipments and nothing more.
There is no emission reduction in this work and none is claimed. Nothing was cut, no cost was saved and no target was hit. What was produced was the ability to answer a question the company was required to answer and could not.
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