Transcripts
Welcome to Unboxing Logistics.
Speaker:I'm your host, Lori Boyer from EasyPost, and today we are going to be talking about one
Speaker:of the big topics in the industry, something that's always near and dear to my heart.
Speaker:We are going to be going into sustainability.
Speaker:Which of course we've talked about before in the past.
Speaker:You here in the Unboxing Logistics community love this topic.
Speaker:But what I'm really wanting to get into is kind of what we are seeing happen in 2025.
Speaker:So for that purpose I have brought in an amazing guest.
Speaker:So, buckle up, get ready today, because we are going to be learning from the
Speaker:one and only, the great Tom Raftery.
Speaker:He is here all the way from sunny Spain to talk to us about what he is, you
Speaker:know, foreseeing for the upcoming year.
Speaker:Tom, introduce yourself to our community a little bit.
Speaker:Hi folks.
Speaker:Thanks for the interest as well as the invitation.
Speaker:My name is Tom Raftery, as Lori said.
Speaker:I've been working at the intersection of technology and sustainability now since I
Speaker:want to say the mid 2000s, around 2005, 2006, roughly actually around the time
Speaker:that the Inconvenient Truth movie came out.
Speaker:So around that time I got into it as well.
Speaker:Coincidentally, but I got into it.
Speaker:At the time I was developing a data center and I was designing the data
Speaker:center to be hyper energy efficient.
Speaker:And so I got into the green space.
Speaker:I decided as well as developing the data center, it would be a cool idea to open
Speaker:source the development of the data center, because I had a social media background.
Speaker:So we started documenting online the full build out of the data center, everything
Speaker:from the arrival of the backhoes on site to dig out the foundations through
Speaker:to the delivery of customer kit.
Speaker:And so that kind of got me a name for myself in the green energy space.
Speaker:And it kind of went from there.
Speaker:In 2008, then I left Ireland, where I was living at the time, and moved
Speaker:here to Spain, where I am now.
Speaker:And at the time, I didn't speak Spanish very well, so I needed a job that would
Speaker:allow me to work remotely in English.
Speaker:And so, I landed a job as an industry analyst for a firm called Red Monk and within Red Monk,
Speaker:I led the practice dealing with energy and sustainability, which we termed Green Monk.
Speaker:And so I led the research in that practice through to 2016 when I was recruited into SAP.
Speaker:And within SAP, I worked very much in sustainability and technology as well.
Speaker:But there in SAP, I worked for the supply chain organization.
Speaker:So it was a combination of supply chain, technology, sustainability.
Speaker:Stayed there until 22 when I was impacted by the tech layoffs, unfortunately.
Speaker:But while I was there, I set up two podcasts, and that's part of the reason why I'm here today.
Speaker:One of the podcasts, I called it Climate Confident, and I was dealing with
Speaker:climate issues, and that's still going.
Speaker:And the other one was at the time called the Digital Supply Chain
Speaker:Podcast, but I rebranded it since.
Speaker:And it's now called the Sustainable Supply Chain Podcast.
Speaker:Both of those podcasts go out once a week, every week.
Speaker:I won't say 52 weeks of the year, cause I tend to take a couple of weeks off for
Speaker:summer and winter, but 48 weeks of the year.
Speaker:So there's 48 episodes go out, sometimes 49, depending on how busy I, I, I
Speaker:make myself or how intrepid, I feel.
Speaker:And so, new episode of Sustainable Supply Chain every Monday, 7am CET.
Speaker:New episode of the Climate Confident podcast every Wednesday, 7am CET.
Speaker:Absolutely recommend them.
Speaker:Such great podcasts.
Speaker:And you are amazing for putting them out as regularly as you do.
Speaker:I'm just hands off to you.
Speaker:We'll include links to those in the description.
Speaker:So, make sure that you check them out.
Speaker:You know, Tom is fantastic and just so smart.
Speaker:So, Tom, this season on the podcast, one thing we're doing that I have just loved,
Speaker:is I'm asking guests to share someone else in the industry that you really admire, or a
Speaker:role, maybe, in the industry that you admire.
Speaker:And I've just learned so much and really connected with people on that.
Speaker:So, Tom, who, who is someone, or what is a role you really admire in the industry?
Speaker:That's a great question, Lori, and I got to say, it's not what I can answer.
Speaker:What I mean by that is there are so many people who do such great work in the space.
Speaker:I mean, if I think of Sherry Heinish, for example, she works for EY now.
Speaker:She does great stuff with her Supply Chain Revolution podcast.
Speaker:If I think of Scott Luton, who does great stuff with the Supply Chain Now organization.
Speaker:Over on LinkedIn, if I think of David Schillingford, and, you
Speaker:know, there's more and more.
Speaker:I could go on all day.
Speaker:You know, this is a great industry to be in because there are so many great people
Speaker:doing such fantastic work all the time.
Speaker:It would be unfair to pick any one of them out and say, you know, that they're the best.
Speaker:So there's hundreds.
Speaker:I mean, even the guests I've had on the podcast, people like John Sickert from Canaxis and more.
Speaker:I mean, it's, it just goes on and on and on.
Speaker:It's fantastic.
Speaker:It is.
Speaker:One of the privileges of hosting a podcast that I'm sure you experience as well
Speaker:is meeting so many incredible people.
Speaker:The industry is amazing.
Speaker:And I always say the industry, this is an industry that's huge on
Speaker:connection and on creating a community.
Speaker:And you know, there's really not a greater way to do it than, you know, reaching out and whether
Speaker:it's LinkedIn or podcasts or whatever it is.
Speaker:It's great.
Speaker:I mean, I, I, I run my first podcast from 2005 to 2007 or 2008.
Speaker:I wanna think it was, and it was incredible.
Speaker:From my Rolodex.
Speaker:I just, I met so many really, really interesting people and made such great
Speaker:connections there and continue to, to this day.
Speaker:Yeah, it's fantastic.
Speaker:Yeah, that's great.
Speaker:Okay, so another thing that we're doing this season is, you know, AI
Speaker:is just a huge topic as you know, and you're coming from a tech background.
Speaker:Everyone talks about it, every show we go to every, you know,
Speaker:everybody's going on and on about it.
Speaker:But one thing, you know that a lot of us find as, you know, when we're a little more experienced
Speaker:or we kind of have some expertise is when you look at answers, say from like ChatGPT.
Speaker:Sometimes, you know, it can get you a good start, but often you need kind of that expert's
Speaker:eye to look at it and to be able to know where it's off, where it's right, where it's wrong.
Speaker:So I'm asking a question of ChatGPT and then reading it back to my experts
Speaker:here, in this case for you, Tom, and just kind of getting your take on it.
Speaker:It's a reality check for our AI.
Speaker:Is it on?
Speaker:Did it miss something?
Speaker:Was it, you know, sometimes it's great.
Speaker:And kind of grading it from an A to an F.
Speaker:So, are you ready for this?
Speaker:Go for it.
Speaker:Okay, I'm excited.
Speaker:All right, I asked ChatGPT, what do you believe will be the most commonly implemented
Speaker:sustainability initiatives in the logistics industry, supply chain industry in 2025?
Speaker:This is what it came up with.
Speaker:So its top three.
Speaker:Number one, it thought that we would have a big transition to electric
Speaker:and alternative fuel vehicles.
Speaker:Number two, that we would have a much greater implementation of sustainable packaging.
Speaker:And number three, that carbon emission tracking and reporting would go up.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So I'd love to hear your, your feedback.
Speaker:So electric vehicles.
Speaker:Seems like they were really big, at least here in the U.S.
Speaker:like a couple of years ago and we've kind of slowed down a little bit.
Speaker:What are you seeing with electric vehicles?
Speaker:Yeah, electric vehicles is an interesting one because the press keeps reporting that
Speaker:the sales are dipping, but if you look at the data, the sales figures are actually up
Speaker:and they keep going up year on year on year.
Speaker:And so the, the sales figures for this year are coming in at over 20 percent
Speaker:globally, which is higher than last year.
Speaker:So they are on the increase.
Speaker:Next year, they're going to increase even more.
Speaker:And there's a particular reason for that.
Speaker:So, in Europe in 2020, the rules around emissions from fleets of vehicles there was rules.
Speaker:I, I, I'll get the numbers wrong here, but I'll be in the correct ballpark.
Speaker:So, the EU mandated that the OEMs, the manufacturers, had to have a, an average
Speaker:across the fleet of vehicles they sell of 120 grams CO2 per kilometer driven.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Now to give you an idea, when I bought my Prius back in 2008, It had an average fuel
Speaker:efficiency of 117 grams CO2 per kilometer.
Speaker:So this 120 grams CO2 per kilometer was slightly more, slightly more efficient than a Prius.
Speaker:So all the manufacturers had to have an average of this across their entire fleets, okay, in 2020.
Speaker:And if they went over that, they were hit with fines.
Speaker:And so that's been the case from 2020 to 2024.
Speaker:Now, coming into 2025, that 120 grams CO2 drops to around 90 or 95.
Speaker:I don't, like I said, I'll get the numbers wrong, but I'm in the ballpark.
Speaker:So, all of the EV manufacturers who are selling into Europe are going to be hit with this
Speaker:drop in the emissions across their average.
Speaker:So they're going to be pushing EVs even more next year to make sure they're not hit with fines.
Speaker:And so when you look at that, and you look at the fact that the costs of EVs keeps
Speaker:dropping year on year, you see that for fleet managers, they're far cheaper to own and
Speaker:operate than traditional diesel vehicles.
Speaker:I do think that ChatGPT's got that one right.
Speaker:I think at least here in Europe, but probably even more broadly, the, the penetration
Speaker:of EVs will ramp up significantly in 2025.
Speaker:Oh, that is super interesting.
Speaker:Great insights.
Speaker:So what about number two then?
Speaker:Packaging, that sustainable packaging is going to be big, big this year.
Speaker:I mean, we've got it out there already.
Speaker:Yeah, I mean, sustainable packaging is doing quite well.
Speaker:I'm not sure, I don't see any huge push for it to go, you know, massively bigger in 2025.
Speaker:It's one of those things that's ramping up, you know, nice and slowly and,
Speaker:and surely, but I don't, I don't see any, I could be missing something.
Speaker:Maybe ChatGPT knows something I don't.
Speaker:Yeah, yeah, probably not, Tom.
Speaker:But it will, it will get better, but I'm not sure it'll leap forward to any great extent in 2025.
Speaker:We'll say that one's not quite on, a little bit of a miss.
Speaker:So I thought it was interesting that the third one was more about tracking and reporting than
Speaker:anything, that people would be more diligent about their carbon emission tracking and reporting.
Speaker:Are you seeing a trend that way?
Speaker:Well, again, there's legislative regulations coming down the line, and companies are going to
Speaker:have to be more rigorous around the reporting.
Speaker:So that will ramp up, yeah.
Speaker:Because, you know, there's laws now against, at least here in Europe, again, there's
Speaker:laws against greenwashing, for example.
Speaker:And companies are going to be hit with that if, if they, if they do.
Speaker:The CS triple D is coming into force, which requires, which mandates reporting as well.
Speaker:I suspect in a lot of organizations, what we'll see, is we'll see a shift.
Speaker:Because of the increased rigor required of reporting, we'll see a shift of the function
Speaker:of the corporate sustainability officer, which traditionally in many cases has reported into
Speaker:the chief marketing officer's office, which, you know, tells its own story right there.
Speaker:Huh.
Speaker:That's huge.
Speaker:I can see in a lot of organizations that a move to go into the chief finance
Speaker:officers organization because of the increased rigor demanded of the reporting.
Speaker:So, yeah I do, I do think that one is, is, is, on, on ball, I think, you know, there will be a
Speaker:definite increase in the amount of reporting and measurement and reporting of emissions next year.
Speaker:That's interesting.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So what's missing, Tom?
Speaker:What's missing there is any mention of AI or IOT or blockchain.
Speaker:I'm not sure there'll be any huge increase in blockchain.
Speaker:Again, it's one of these ones like packaging that's increasing slowly, but surely.
Speaker:But AI and IOT are certainly booming.
Speaker:I mean, this is why we're talking about AI.
Speaker:And IOT again, it's one of these ones.
Speaker:I don't see a huge leap forward in IOT, but it's just, it's, it's, you know, it's
Speaker:increasing incredibly for tracking and tracing, particularly, you know, it's.
Speaker:And you need AI to take in all that data from the sensors and make sense of it.
Speaker:And, you know, spit out insights based on all the data that's coming in.
Speaker:So is AI then you feel like it has a fairly strong role when it comes to kind of our
Speaker:sustainability and roles there because it does just help us have that understanding
Speaker:and information more readily available.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:It goes back to that Peter Drucker saw that everyone throws out all the time, you know,
Speaker:if you can't measure it, you can't manage it.
Speaker:And everyone throws it out because it's true, you know, you know, you need to and
Speaker:you need to have those sensors in place.
Speaker:You need to know what's going on.
Speaker:You need, for a lot of the sustainability reporting, you need to be able to report
Speaker:out to scope three increasingly, which means you need to be able to report the
Speaker:emissions coming from your suppliers.
Speaker:And that gets rather tricky because it's third party information.
Speaker:You've got to talk with them.
Speaker:So a lot of it is around increasing partnerships and cooperation.
Speaker:And, you know, and it's taking in enormous amounts of data.
Speaker:And what we'll start to see then is AI helping organizations to work
Speaker:with that data that's coming in.
Speaker:And as I said, get the insights from that, but also make recommendations based on that.
Speaker:So you could see, for example, if you're looking out across a list of suppliers for
Speaker:some particular thing, it might be a shipment, it might be packaging, it might be whatever.
Speaker:And you're looking at across your supplier base.
Speaker:Your AI might be able to say, well, this particular supplier has an on time rate
Speaker:of 95%, a cost of whatever dollars it is, and their emissions per kilometer
Speaker:driven or per mile driven are Y, which is lower than the others in the space.
Speaker:So you start looking at these three different axes, not just money, not just on time rate,
Speaker:but also emissions from their suppliers.
Speaker:And if you're using AI for that, it'll, it'll parse through, you know, potentially thousands
Speaker:of suppliers and find the optimum for you.
Speaker:That's fantastic.
Speaker:So, okay.
Speaker:Really great summary there.
Speaker:What would you give it on a grade?
Speaker:We'll, we'll put on professor Raftery's hat here.
Speaker:You know, what, what did you give it as a grade?
Speaker:A to F.
Speaker:A to F is how we do it here in the U.S.
Speaker:I'm not sure how you do it in Ireland.
Speaker:I'd say we'll give it a strong B.
Speaker:Okay, that's about where most of my experts are having it land.
Speaker:So, out there in the community, that's kind of what you can guess.
Speaker:You know, don't go off and just think that you've got it all.
Speaker:A round of B.
Speaker:So, that's fantastic.
Speaker:Okay, so let's talk a little bit about moving into 2025.
Speaker:We've kind of talked about predictions already in our discussion with AI.
Speaker:But, you know, what do you think is driving, I guess, the sustainability movement right now?
Speaker:What is it going to be regulations?
Speaker:Is it going to be consumer expectations?
Speaker:You know, what do you see are the biggest impacts as we're going into 2025?
Speaker:There is a few things.
Speaker:So there's yes, consumer expectations is a big one, because obviously, if you are, if you have
Speaker:a good sustainability story that you can tell and back it up with data, then obviously that'll make
Speaker:the cost of customer acquisition, it'll reduce it, and customer retention, it'll reduce that as well.
Speaker:Your customers will stay with you.
Speaker:So they'll, they'll find you and they'll stay with you more easily if you have
Speaker:a good sustainability story to tell.
Speaker:I was going to say that goes back into what you mentioned about why people are reporting into
Speaker:the seat, the chief marketing officer, right?
Speaker:So it is a good story.
Speaker:It's, it's not just customer acquisition, but it's the cost of customer acquisition.
Speaker:So hence there's a finance aspect to it too, because you need to make a business
Speaker:case for this kind of thing for it to stick.
Speaker:And so, yeah, cost of customer acquisition will drop, but cost of
Speaker:customer retention will also drop.
Speaker:But it's not just that.
Speaker:So there's several other stakeholders who are involved in this space as well.
Speaker:If we think of the employees of your organization.
Speaker:I had an episode of the podcast that I had with a guy called Ken Pucker about a year ago or so now.
Speaker:And Ken's the former COO of Timberland.
Speaker:And he was their COO when they started doing their emissions reporting back in the early 2000s.
Speaker:So they were very early in this space.
Speaker:And he said, one of the things that amazed him was when they started doing this, when they would
Speaker:advertise a vacancy in the organization, he said the caliber of people who would apply for that
Speaker:role was way higher than they would have expected.
Speaker:And it was because they had this name of being an organization with a good sustainability story.
Speaker:So same kind of thing for your employees.
Speaker:You're now reducing your cost of employee recruitment and employee retention.
Speaker:So it's easier to find good employees, again, if you have a good sustainability
Speaker:story to tell, because people want to work an organization that's doing good things.
Speaker:We all do, you know.
Speaker:I, you know, I've asked people in the past, sometimes in getting to know you, what would
Speaker:you do if you, you know, won the lottery?
Speaker:And a lot of people say they'd like to start a company or an organization
Speaker:where they're helping others.
Speaker:And, but you know, there are.
Speaker:Being a sustainable, you know, a company with that focus, it's what people want.
Speaker:I love that point, Tom.
Speaker:That's great.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:And then there's, there's other stakeholders like your banks.
Speaker:So again, if you have a good sustainability story, your bank will, your, your cost of
Speaker:capital from your bank should be reduced.
Speaker:Because the banks want to have green projects and green customers in their portfolios so
Speaker:they can say, look, here's our portfolio.
Speaker:Here's how many green projects and prospects and customers we have in our portfolio.
Speaker:It looks good for them for their reporting for their scope three.
Speaker:Same with insurance companies.
Speaker:So your cost of insurance, your cost of banking should fall if you have
Speaker:this good sustainability story to tell.
Speaker:Also, the, your, your investors, investors are looking for companies to invest in.
Speaker:So if you're a publicly traded company, this should reflect well,
Speaker:again, for your, for investors.
Speaker:Because the boards, again, boards are looking for this.
Speaker:So there's, there's pressure coming from boards to, to reduce
Speaker:sustainability for this exact reason.
Speaker:So, you know, there's, there's so many different stakeholders who are looking at this.
Speaker:This is why sustainability has gone from being kind of a nice to have, and now
Speaker:being, you know, a business imperative.
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:Where do you feel like, you know, we've done really well with implementing, you know,
Speaker:sustainability and where do you feel like kind of in the industry, we're still falling short?
Speaker:Where have we done really well?
Speaker:Is that nowhere?
Speaker:Oh, no!
Speaker:Where have we done a little better than we have in other areas?
Speaker:How about that?
Speaker:Yeah, I, I don't think we've done really well anywhere.
Speaker:So our report card would say must do more, work harder.
Speaker:So we, we really need to to get the emissions from transportation down.
Speaker:And we have the technology, you know, the old, the old 6 million dollar man quote, we
Speaker:have the technology, we can rebuild them.
Speaker:We have the technology.
Speaker:I mean, the, the, the cost.
Speaker:I mean, deploying things like telematics, that's, that's, table stakes for this kind of
Speaker:stuff, because sensors, data, information, all that kind of stuff we talked about earlier.
Speaker:Route planning, optimizing routes.
Speaker:Again, that's been done for a good while now.
Speaker:That's great.
Speaker:That's fantastic.
Speaker:But moving away from fossil fuels to electric transportation, that's I mean, that's
Speaker:still a long way from where it should be.
Speaker:And the thing is, the economics of doing it all stack up now.
Speaker:The, yes, the upfront cost of EVs is higher still, but the operating cost of them is way lower.
Speaker:And also the maintenance cost, I guess, if you build that in, if you call that the
Speaker:operating cost, then it's included in that.
Speaker:But if you, if you see that as a separate line item, maintenance costs of EVs are about 50
Speaker:percent what they are for fossil fuel vehicles.
Speaker:So your cost per mile and your cost for maintenance is significantly lower.
Speaker:They're also more secure vehicles.
Speaker:You know, that's another nice thing.
Speaker:And the, I mean, Geotab put out a report just in the last few days talking about EVs.
Speaker:And in particular, they talked about the lifetime of the batteries of EVs.
Speaker:And so from this report, they said from the data of analyzing 10,000 vehicles over multiple years
Speaker:on the Geotab platform, they've seen 10,000 EVs.
Speaker:that the batteries in EVs typically lose about 1.8 percent of capacity every year.
Speaker:So after 10 years, they've lost about 18 percent of their original capacity.
Speaker:Now, how many fleets do you know that operate vehicles that are 10 years old?
Speaker:Yeah, right.
Speaker:You know?
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:So, and, and 18 percent after 10 years, they're still at 82 percent of original capacity.
Speaker:So, Tom, if it makes sense, you know, and we've got the technology, why
Speaker:aren't, why isn't it not happening?
Speaker:I think a lot of it is, we fear change.
Speaker:Also, there's an aspect as well of the EV makers, when they moved into this
Speaker:space, the likes of Tesla was one of the first big ones initially, obviously.
Speaker:They moved in with their Model S first, and then their Model 3.
Speaker:Those are not really commercial vehicles, unless you're talking about sales fleets.
Speaker:So getting into light commercial vehicles and then the, the, the class eights and, and in all
Speaker:those in between, that's taking a little longer.
Speaker:And then there's the deployment of charging infrastructure for
Speaker:particularly the class eight vehicles.
Speaker:That's only starting to be rolled out.
Speaker:So I can understand why, you know, there aren't that many big electric trucks out there.
Speaker:But commercial vans now, they should, they should be electric at this point
Speaker:because they charge on standard chargers.
Speaker:And, you know, there, there are very few places now where it's hard to find a standard charger.
Speaker:In any case, most commercial fleets, particularly the light vehicles light commercial vehicles,
Speaker:most of those come back to base every evening.
Speaker:And there's enough range in those, you know, unless you're doing 500 miles every
Speaker:day, which is, which would be very unusual.
Speaker:Most of those would have enough range to do the full day without having to recharge.
Speaker:So in the U.S.We have a little bit of challenge because we do have such long routes.
Speaker:and that, you know, going from point to point, we have some massive distances.
Speaker:I think EVs for that purpose have not been quite useful in the U.S.
Speaker:yet.
Speaker:But in the last mile in the city, are super, super useful.
Speaker:Do you agree or disagree with me?
Speaker:Yes and no.
Speaker:As in, yes around the city, absolutely.
Speaker:I'm just, after putting my money down on a new EV for myself in the last week
Speaker:or so, I'm taking delivery next week.
Speaker:It's a Kia EV3.
Speaker:And the Kia EV3 has a range of about 370 miles and it has a 30 minute recharge time.
Speaker:So if I'm after driving 370 miles, I'll want a 30 minute break.
Speaker:And in many cases, in many cases it's mandated for, for, you know, commercial drivers.
Speaker:So if I drive 370 miles, plug it in for 30 minutes, go and have a rest break, bite to
Speaker:eat, cup of coffee after 30 minutes, car's full again, and off I go for the next one.
Speaker:What about autonomous vehicles, Tom?
Speaker:Do you see that coming around into play?
Speaker:We're getting a little tiny bit of those tastes here.
Speaker:We've got some of the, you know, Uber and Lyft that are now autonomous.
Speaker:Long, long haul routes.
Speaker:Do you see autonomous vehicles coming into play at some point?
Speaker:Yeah, potentially.
Speaker:I mean, I think, I think the long haul routes are actually where they'll happen first.
Speaker:Well, no, that's not true.
Speaker:I think where they'll happen first is in places where you have bounded geofenced areas.
Speaker:So think of mines and think of ports and think of within warehouses, you know, so they're
Speaker:not going out in public roads, for example.
Speaker:That's, you know, that's low hanging fruit right there.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:And then when you're on public routes, I think, yes, the, the long distance trucking will will go
Speaker:autonomous before driving around within cities.
Speaker:So, when you're on interstates and highways, you know and, and you
Speaker:have trains of them, essentially going.
Speaker:The, the advantage they'll have over the railroad infrastructure is when they're autonomous, and
Speaker:when they're able to go like that, long fleets of them, then the cost comes way, way, way, way down.
Speaker:And so, and then what I would see is they would go to distribution centers, and from there, they'd be
Speaker:unloaded and put into smaller EVs and just moved around by human drivers at that point, for now.
Speaker:And of course, because they'd, because it'd be cheaper than rail, what would happen is it steals
Speaker:some of the business from rail and so they'd increase the amount of local distribution from
Speaker:these distribution centers with humans driving, you know, as, as I say, for now, at least.
Speaker:I think it'll be quite a while before we have autonomous vehicles doing last mile distribution.
Speaker:I think you're right.
Speaker:I think, especially in really busy urban centers, that's going to be rough.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:And I think what they will do is they'll shift.
Speaker:They, they'll shift the human factor away from the long distance trucking and more
Speaker:to the shorter haul trucking, which I think for, for drivers anyway, is probably nicer.
Speaker:I mean, maybe there are some drivers out there who absolutely love the long distance
Speaker:driving, but for, for, for many of them, what will happen is they'll be going shorter
Speaker:routes, taking as I say, from the distribution centers to last mile delivery, et cetera.
Speaker:And so for many drivers, it would mean they'd be able to get home every
Speaker:night, which might be a nice thing.
Speaker:And yeah, with the labor challenges we face in this industry, anything you can do
Speaker:to make the job more enjoyable is great.
Speaker:So we've kind of talked about the carrier side.
Speaker:Let's talk about, you know, we have a lot of shippers in our audience as well.
Speaker:What are your recommendations?
Speaker:So, you know, We have all sizes of people who listen.
Speaker:How would you recommend, so let's say for 2025, let's say you've got, you know,
Speaker:step one, step two, step three, you know, where, where do you recommend people start
Speaker:in their sustainability efforts if they've already done some things, you know, I guess,
Speaker:what are the stepping stones in your mind?
Speaker:Yeah, there's a, there's a few things.
Speaker:I mean, you can't really go on a sustainability journey unless you've started on a digitization
Speaker:effort because again, back to the original point, you know, you have to be able to measure it before
Speaker:you can manage it and to be able to measure it properly, it needs to be in a digital format.
Speaker:So you need to be, you need to be rolling out digital solutions,
Speaker:digitizing your, your, your platforms.
Speaker:Okay, so I'm going to stop you because that was really cool.
Speaker:That was a great truth bomb there from you.
Speaker:You cannot go on a sustainability journey unless you first start your digital journey.
Speaker:Was that correct?
Speaker:How you said that?
Speaker:Love that.
Speaker:Super smart.
Speaker:Put that there as a quote.
Speaker:So yeah, go ahead.
Speaker:Explain.
Speaker:So we need to get, you can't just throw stuff at the wall and be
Speaker:like, oh, hopefully that's helping.
Speaker:So go ahead.
Speaker:And then you need to start setting goals for yourself.
Speaker:You know, you need to say, okay, by 2030, I want to get to here.
Speaker:By 2035, I want to get to here.
Speaker:And then you need to backfill those targets with steps to get there.
Speaker:And then, so you need to, roll up, roll out your, your goals and then roll out
Speaker:your, as I say, your steps to get there.
Speaker:You need to measure your emissions, start with your scope one and two, so
Speaker:the emissions from your own organization.
Speaker:And then start working on your scope three.
Speaker:But you know, that's, that's, if you haven't started in scope one and two, do that first.
Speaker:And when you've got that nailed, then worry about your scope 3.
Speaker:You think they should be hiring someone specifically to be working on their ESG,
Speaker:you know, sustainability kind of stuff?
Speaker:It wouldn't hurt.
Speaker:I, I think, I mean, there's a lot of information out there if you, if you search
Speaker:for it, but I do think you probably, depending on the size of the organization, but you
Speaker:do probably need someone dedicated to it.
Speaker:Someone or, you know, send someone from the organization on a course or something like that.
Speaker:It does need, it does need a dedicated resource, I feel.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:I agree with that.
Speaker:I think ideally, absolutely you should.
Speaker:But if you can't, that doesn't mean you shouldn't do sustainability efforts.
Speaker:Google is your friend there, or ChatGPT in this case.
Speaker:It's getting a B as we said, so that's good.
Speaker:It's a B, so that's right.
Speaker:You don't have the person in house.
Speaker:That would get you the A.
Speaker:So, once you have your goals and everything set, and you have digitized
Speaker:a bit, then you need to start measuring.
Speaker:And start measuring your emissions, and report those emissions against
Speaker:the goals that you set for yourself.
Speaker:Then you need to start working on your low hanging fruit.
Speaker:So some easy wins.
Speaker:One of the, one of the easiest is to electrify as much as you can.
Speaker:So electrify your transportation, electrify your heating and cooling, electrify
Speaker:your cooking, if you have a kitchen.
Speaker:You know, electrify everything you can and then,
Speaker:contract a renewable energy supplier and straight away, boom, you know, that's,
Speaker:that's, that's real low hanging fruit stuff.
Speaker:Straight away, you've done away with a huge amount of your scope one and
Speaker:two emissions just by doing that.
Speaker:And after that, I think one of the, one of the most effective things you can do as
Speaker:an organization, and a lot of people are going to get uncomfortable when I say this.
Speaker:You can tie your executive's remuneration to emissions reduction KPIs.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:Yeah, that's right.
Speaker:You tell it like it is, Tom.
Speaker:I love it.
Speaker:And right there, right there, you'll start to see some results.
Speaker:People are going to care.
Speaker:That's absolutely right.
Speaker:And you know, we have seen, you know, I was speaking with Dr.
Speaker:Chris Caplice of MIT transportation, great guy, but he was mentioning how a lot of these
Speaker:companies who have had initiatives were starting to come due, you know, or they'd set their goals.
Speaker:And so we are going to be seeing more and more emphasis.
Speaker:And as it gets kind of that executive level, I mean, that's, that's really huge.
Speaker:So we are just about out of time.
Speaker:I feel like Tom, you and I, we need to sit down sometime.
Speaker:I need to come visit you in Spain.
Speaker:So because you just have so many great insights.
Speaker:Anything else you feel like we've missed or anything you wish people
Speaker:knew or, going into 2025, final tips.
Speaker:Yeah, I mean, another couple of things you could do as an organization is set
Speaker:an internal carbon price for projects.
Speaker:So once you've started measuring your emissions, you can then tie it to individual projects
Speaker:within the organization and then mandate that every organization, sorry, that every project
Speaker:within the organization does a carbon price.
Speaker:And then set a price for that carbon.
Speaker:I don't know, set a 20 dollars a ton or 60 dollars a ton or whatever it is, just set a price
Speaker:on it, collect the money from each of those.
Speaker:And use that money, ring fence it, for sustainability projects within the organization,
Speaker:maybe you use it to roll out chargers in your car park for your employees or something similar,
Speaker:you know, but make sure that it's it's taken.
Speaker:And then you're, you're by that you're, you're getting people to, to actually have
Speaker:an interest in the amount of carbon that's in their projects and try and minimize it
Speaker:because it's coming out of their carbon budget.
Speaker:Every department gets a carbon budget, for example, you know, so do these kinds of
Speaker:initiatives as well and, and even gamify it across departments, across sites, if you have
Speaker:multiple sites, you know, all that kind of thing.
Speaker:Absolutely works that it.
Speaker:You know, and just the awareness of people knowing and thinking about it.
Speaker:And it goes back to what you said earlier, Tom, about people feeling good about working
Speaker:somewhere that is making a difference.
Speaker:And the great news I feel like with everything with the sustainability
Speaker:is it does make business sense.
Speaker:Back to what you said at the very beginning, being sustainable is tied to efficiency so much.
Speaker:And that usually is going to produce dollars for you.
Speaker:You are going to get better with investors and bankers and, and you're going to be the supplier
Speaker:that people want to use for their scope three.
Speaker:And so yeah, fantastic insights, Tom.
Speaker:If our audience wants to connect with you learn from you, what, you know,
Speaker:how can they learn more about you?
Speaker:LinkedIn, where, where should they reach out?
Speaker:Sure.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:LinkedIn is always a good one.
Speaker:Quite active there.
Speaker:I'm also no longer posting on Twitter, so I've, I've moved away from there
Speaker:because it's become a toxic hellscape.
Speaker:Yes, it is!
Speaker:It's scary!
Speaker:I'm now on Threads and Blue Sky.
Speaker:And in fact, on, on BlueSky, I created what's called a starter pack for Supply Chain.
Speaker:So if you do come into BlueSky and you're looking for your tribe, check out the Supply Chain starter
Speaker:pack, and that'll give you a list of people in Supply Chain who are on BlueSky, and straight away
Speaker:you'll find people, you know, to, to follow and get sort of relevant feeds of information for you.
Speaker:So it becomes useful off the bat.
Speaker:That's perfect.
Speaker:As we said, communities critical in this industry, find your tribe.
Speaker:Love that phrase.
Speaker:And of course you got to check out Tom's podcast.
Speaker:Fantastic.
Speaker:We'll link them below.
Speaker:Thank you again for being here.
Speaker:This has been fantastic.
Speaker:No, thanks for inviting me, Lori.
Speaker:And thanks everyone.
Speaker:If you've, if you've lasted this long, well done.
Speaker:Thank you for the interest.
Speaker:Well, thanks.
Speaker:See you next time.
