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The missing link
Page 3
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The Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport's new report -An lnconvehtent Truck? The CILT Guide to CO2 Emissions from Freight makes for uncomfortable reading. However, Commercial Motor suggests anyone with access to the web download a copy of it now r,http://www.ciltuk.org. uk/download/CILT_Guideto_co2_emissions.pdfl The headline summary says it all: "Truck operators must do better to cut emissions and save money." In the report there's advice on how it can be done and who can help you do it. But its what the report doesn't say... or at least doesn't say loud enough.., that strikes us as odd.
Having insisted that: -...freight operators have not acted to cut emissions with the degree of urgency that the science on climate change suggests is needed, it says tittle about what, or who, has been driving the recent undeniable increases in road freight. In truth, its been the Great British Consumer's demand for cheap food, cheap clothing.., well, cheap everything. And in most (if not alll cases, those cheap goods have been delivered off the back of a lorry. If only British truck operators got rich doing it. If they had, then the implication of the CILT report that too many British truck operators have knowingly failed to mitigate their environmental impact would be more palatable. But the 'inconvenient truth is that the average operator in the UK is not making enough money to cover their operating costs, let alone their environmental costs. And until the beneficiaries of cheap transport namely consumers accept that 'inconvenient' fact and not only pay for the environmental impact of cut-price road freight, but also fund practical ideas to improve efficiencies, the prospects for significantly reducing CO2 across the UK HGV truck parc look slim. The CILT report raises questions about global warming... only truck operators can't provide the answers. And nor should they have to.
Brian Weatherley