The State of Green in The Moving and Transportation Industry

It is time for me to dust off Renewable Now to discuss the state of green in the moving and transportation industry, at least in print and audio reports, and get back to some good reporting on the business side of green.

Let’s start this month on getting caught up on the state of green in moving/transportation and general trends in business. Within our industry, I think we are slow getting eco-friendly. That includes Arpin and our supply chain. There is plenty of technology available to help clean up our operations…reducing waste to almost zero, plenty of choices to cut emissions–solar/batteries on trucks, advanced braking with plug-ins on smaller trucks, full electric vehicles…recyclable material to use during the move, but we don’t fully buy-in. Shame on us.

Very few owners have invested in retrofitting their roofs for renewables. Why? The financial returns are, in most areas, double-digit and growing as fuel becomes more expensive.

Same thing around our office operations…are we all paperless, buying equipment in which we use less power, using non-toxic materials on cleaning and landscaping, and putting solar on our roofs? I don’t see enough of that going on.

If we don’t catch up, we’ll never jump into the newer trends that many companies are using and investing into new assets. That includes:

1.  Turning food waste and sewage into usable energy.
2.  With that, pushing their food service companies and employees to get to zero food waste.
3.  Buying extremely energy-efficient equipment. Construction companies are helping to lead the charge on this.
4.  Tech companies are getting very creative in generating their own energy to run servers and the cloud.
5.  Very exciting is a big push into sustainable advertising. A place we are seeing this is on new billboards. Now they can purify the air as they promote a product or service, and small community gardens are smartly planted underneath them. Digital is replacing paper. And trade shows, with mobile exhibits, are investing heavily in carbon reduction. Great innovation here.
6. Other positive trends–overall cuts in fuel use in trucks and buildings, use of microgrids, incorporating green infrastructure into base operations, and B to B sharing of resources. All to the benefit of customers and consumers as well, of course.

One thing companies don’t always understand, which we do here at Arpin, is we have the ability to create eco-benefits, across the globe, by supporting other projects that have environmental improvements. Here’s a list of our current donations/investments with other partners:

1. Co-developing, here in our industrial park, an almost 5MW, utility-scale solar field.
2. Increasing the use of renewables for base electricity and equipment, including for crop irrigation, with EcoGenesis in the Philippines.
3. Installed in Haiti, despite the chaos and violence, a solar array at the L’Arc-en-Ciel Orphanage which is now their main source of power.
4. Continue support of game-changing transportation tech with eNow and XL Fleet.
5. Multiple investments in wind, solar, microgrids, and retrofitting of buildings through various groups with global footprints.
6. Helping to fund large-scale clean, green projects in Africa.

Many of these collaborations will open the door to major players coming in and picking up the foundation we’ve laid and expanding to epic levels of economic growth. That is the next stage now that we’ve helped prove the model and demonstrated excellent ROI’s.

Are we seeing some improvements? We are. Can we do better? You tell me. I’d like to hear from you on this.

Next month we look more closely at the trends, their advancements, and why they will be good for commerce and mankind.