IMAGINABILITY
ROAD TO SUSTAINABILITY
Sectorial Platform for Sustainability Reporting of Road Transportation Companies
Master in Sustainability Transition Management
January 17, 2024
Bălășescu Cătălin, Boatto Tania, Capo Nicole,
Dimitropoulou Konstantina, Tararache Cristina
- Website: https://profiles.eco/imaginability.eco
- Contact: team@imaginability.eco
The Team
We are Tania and Nicole (Italy), Konstantina (Greece), Cristina and Catalin (Romania), attending the Executive Master in Sustainability Transition Management 2023 cohort at Bologna Business School.
Bălășescu
Cătălin
Boatto
Tania
Capo
Nicole
Dimitropoulou
Konstantina
Tararache
Cristina
Our motto: Imagine sustainability and make it happen!
Project
ROAD TO SUSTAINABILITY: Sectorial Platform for Sustainability Reporting of Road Transportation Companies
Genesis of the idea
Why Road Transportation?
- According to the EU, road transportation is one of the eight most vulnerable sectors,
- 1/4 of the EU GHG emissions come from transport,
- 3/4 of these GHG emissions come from road transport,
- Progress in decarbonizing transport has been slower than in other economic sectors,
- To support the overall climate neutrality target, the EU’s goal is to reduce GHG emissions from transport by 90% by 2050, compared with 1990 levels (this goal requires many changes).
Key Regulatory Observed
- Directive 2022/2464 on corporate sustainability reporting, to be implemented between2024-2028. Reports will be done according to the ESRS,
- Due Diligence Directive – provisional agreement,
- Sectorial Standards – draft,
- Voluntary SME Sustainability Standards
- Regulation (EU) 2023/851: adoption of new strengthened CO2 performance standards for cars and vans (all new cars and vans registered in EU must be zero zero-emission by 2035),
- Regulation 2020/1056 on Electronic freight transport – aiming at the digitalization and standardization of all the information related to transport of goods in the EU.
Vision and Mission of the Project
Our VISION is to guide the transformation towards sustainability of road transportation activities.
Our MISSION is to support, measure and report on sustainability progress of road transportation companies through collaboration and engagement with stakeholders.
WHAT
Establish the key data that road transportation companies must report on for sustainability compliance.
HOW
Develop a tool (allowing for data collection and reporting) which can function on its own or as add-on to existing software applications.
PILOT
Perfom a pilot on an existing road transportation platform to analyse if our sustainability related tool could be incorporated.
Let's Talk
Talk to one of us today about our project.
Pilot
Abstract of the project
The logistics sector plays an important role in today’s globalized business environment, yet it also contributes to the world’s most pressing sustainability issues of environmental pressure and climate change. Transport accounts for a quarter of greenhouse gas emissions in the EU. The transport sector therefore plays an essential role in the climate crisis. At the same time, energy efficiency helps to bring down costs, especially as CO2 prices continue to rise. While some transport companies are aiming at carbon neutrality, trendsetters are already striving to be carbon positive. In addition, the European regulatory framework is going to push the sector to sustainability reporting and to accelerate actions to meet 2050 carbon neutrality. At the same time companies in the sector face challenges and uncertainties that evolve due to the business environment’s dynamism and managerial expectations. The road transport sector consists of SMEs mainly, with less access and capacity in terms of resources, tools, and competence on sustainability topics. Moreover, these difficulties are also reflected in managerial activities, including reporting practices including sustainability one.
In addition, the transport management system’s digital transformation is ongoing. Digital technologies are playing an ever-increasing role in the system. Depending on how this will be managed, the effects may be very different: while digital technologies can bring immediate benefits like efficiency improvements in the sector, they can also have indirect effects that can be much harder to predict and can strongly reduce benefits for the environment — or even worsen the pressures. In parallel, a proliferation of IoT tool for sustainability reporting is observed in different sectors and supply chain including road transport one, resulting in a multi-IoT system in the same supply chain. This could generate low efficiency, higher cost and put an additional drop in sustainability reporting complexity and challenges.
Supporting and servicing the companies of road transportation sector to deal with the sustainability reporting challenges, is the central idea of this project: through a web-based platform the companies can easily integrate their transport data or TMS (Transport Management System), obtaining sustainability reporting in automatic way. The aim of project work is to understand if the idea meets road transport needs in term of sustainability reporting, through an inductive process, through interviews, involving companies of logistic sector. Finally, the project work proposes the business model proposition developed through the idea of sustainability reporting service and considering the research among stakeholders.
