EV Cargo’s environmental commitment. Virginia Alzina, April 2022

Sustainability has become a buzzword for modern businesses, but too often green credentials turn out to be little more than verbiage. However, for global logistics and supply chain management provider EV Cargo, sustainability is about doing more than saying, so the company believes in a proactive approach and commitment that is embedded in all aspects of its global operations.

It is an ethic based on a solid sustainability strategy built around three fundamental pillars: people, the planet and profits. Each of them plays its own role in directing EV Cargo’s current strategy for a low-carbon, sustainable and responsible future. All this in a sector that too often values speed over sustainability.

EV Cargo was created in 2018 by EmergeVest, a growth-oriented private equity investment group, based in Hong Kong, and an international equity investor with extensive experience in global supply chain business. EV Cargo is a consolidation of six of the UK’s leading logistics companies into a corporate structure under a unique new brand.

The change began in 2021 with the creation of an executive-level Sustainability Committee, a tangible sign of EV Cargo’s intentions. This was driven by my incorporation as Chief Sustainability Officer, with the firm task of ensuring that the company not only complied with existing global initiatives, but also took an active role in promoting those initiatives.

In the last year alone, EV Cargo has become a signatory to the United Nations Global Compact, pledging to respect and report on 10 universal principles covering human rights, labour, the environment and the fight against corruption. It has also committed to supporting the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and to making numerous positive contributions to SDGs such as gender equality, affordable and clean energy, decent work and economic growth, responsible production and consumption, and climate action.

As signatories to the Arctic Commitment, EV Cargo pledges not to steer ships through rapidly melting sea ice and unique Arctic habitats. The company has also joined the Science Based Target initiative and the Net Zero Race, and has recently become a friend of the Smart Freight Centre, adopted the Global Logistic Emissions Council Framework methodology for the accounting of Scope 3 specific to logistics companies and invested in one of the accredited software for the calculation of Scope 3 of all our EcoTransIT World merchandise movements. Our goal is to become carbon neutral (Scope 1 and Scope 2) by 2030, and to significantly reduce Scope 3 emissions.

All of this activity was set against the backdrop of last year’s COP26 conference, and EV Cargo was one of the first to endorse the meeting’s ambitious Global Memorandum of Understanding to achieve an interim target of 30% sales of new zero-emission bus and truck vehicles by 2030 and 100% by 2040.

The first global agreement on zero-emission trucks and buses aims to put net carbon emissions within reach by 2050. The Global Memorandum of Understanding was signed by 15 countries, 20 subnational organizations, investors and a number of frontline manufacturers at COP26 in a coordinated effort to reduce transport emissions, mitigate climate change, improve air quality, reduce fossil fuel use and cut energy costs.

It is the first time a unified target has been set, supported by both national governments and industry. For its part, EV Cargo has produced its first and very ambitious Sustainability Report for 2021, using the demanding industry standards by adhering to the GLEC framework and establishing a wide variety of rigorous and sustainable KPIs using GRI, SASB and SBTi.

The adoption of the Science-Based Goal (SBTi) initiative and its Business Ambition campaign means that EV Cargo is committed to a scenario that reflects the Paris Agreement to keep the TSMG at 1.5ºC or less than pre-industrial levels.

But what are the practical consequences that flow from this activity?

EV Cargo has been the first logistics operator in the UK to launch the consumer goods industry’s first all-electric, zero-emission large tonnage truck, as part of a major sustainability collaboration with one of its main customers to reduce CO emissions.₂ associated with supply chain operations. The DAF CF electric truck delivers to The Park, an emissions-neutral company that packs 25% of all wine sold in the UK. Today, it ships six million bottles of wine a week to its customers, including leading retailers such as Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda and Aldi.

EV Cargo has also introduced hydrogen-treated vegetable oil (HVO) biofuel, which it believes will reduce carbon emissions by up to 90%. In collaboration with beverage customer AB InBev Budweiser worldwide, EV Cargo manages a fleet of HVO biofuel distribution vehicles.

On the other hand, the company has drastically reduced the environmental impact of the supply chain activity, reducing the use of corrugated paper and cardboard, the kilometers traveled and the carbon footprint. This has enabled EV Cargo to help partners such as Marks and Spencer, helping them increase the filling levels of their shipping containers by 15% – up to 95% industry-leading – and reduce 1,000 TEUs (Twenty Foot Containers) shipped annually from Asia to Europe, equivalent to the annual savings of some 1 Billion Tonnes of CO emissions.₂

After receiving ISO 14001 accreditation, the gold standard of the sector, EV Cargo’s contribution received a new recognition when Dr. Virginia Alzina and Simon Power, Vice President of Global Operations, received certification from the UN Climate Ambition Accelerator Program.

The creation of this “sustainable awareness” throughout EV Cargo has also seen reflected the creation of Sustainability Champions, a voluntary commitment by employees across the entire business infrastructure to innovate and apply responsible practices across the company’s ecosystem.

This includes initiatives to eradicate single-use plastics in the workplace, and to engage with communities alongside their workplaces. All employees are challenged to dedicate 10 hours of their time each year to helping others or raising funds for charity. In addition to providing a forum to discuss the positive influence these initiatives can have on communities, they demonstrated that they could drive positive change in diversity and inclusion.

In addition, the company used International Women’s Day as a platform to carry out a series of activities aimed at ending prejudice in the workplace and forging a world with gender equality, and also launched the monthly Women Forward Lean-In circles to further support female colleagues.

EV Cargo CEO Heath Zarin was one of the business leaders who participated in a webinar on gender equality organized by the United Nations Global Compact. The webinar series on the Sustainable Development Goals for Enterprise Transformation introduced and explored the Sustainable Development Goals of the Compact for Business and translated them into concrete aspirations.

For all these reasons, EV Cargo’s commitment is both to a sustainable company and a sustainable planet. But, of course, much remains to be done and the company will continue to be guided by its values and sustainability strategy.

Virginia Alzina

Ph.D., Chief Sustainability Officer at EV Cargo

Company Member of the Private Company and Climate Foundation