Health Fitness

How to calculate the carbon footprint of truck shipments

I get a lot of inquiries on how to calculate the carbon footprint of trucking. The problem is quite simple to calculate. However, there is a variable that presents a problem. Fuel consumption. Fuel consumption is not constant. It depends on many factors such as: the age of the truck, the general maintenance of the truck, the aerodynamic factor of the truck, whether it was traveling uphill or downhill, whether it was a windy day, etc. etc. If you’re comfortable with an estimate: 6 miles per gallon is a good estimate of what a truck uses on average. Now the rest is hard data …

Example # 1: LOAD COMPLETE

Truck with full load

Fuel consumption: 6 miles per gallon

Miles traveled: 1000

Carbon per US Gallon of Diesel: 2.77 KG

= 1000 miles / 6mpg x 2.77KG per gallon

(Please ignore the combination of imperial and metric. The transportation industry is still in imperial while the rest of us are in metric!)

= 461.68 KG is the Carbon Footprint of this shipment.

If you are looking for a formula = 0.46 KG per mile traveled (based on a 44,000 lb truck load).

Example # 2 LTL:

LTL

Full truck load = 44,000 pounds

Fuel consumption = 6mpg

Miles = 1000

Shipping = 10,000 pounds

Carbon per US gallon of diesel = 2.77 KG

We know that the total Carbon Footprint on this truck load is 461.68 KG from the previous calculation and that a full truck carries 44,000 pounds. So, 461.68 / 44,000 = 0.0105 per pound. Multiply by 10,000 lbs = 104.93 KG of carbon for this LTL shipment.

If you are looking for a formula = 0.0105 kg per pound / 1000 miles = 0.00001 kg per pound / mile

= 0.00001x POUNDS x MILES

Note: Because LTL densities may be different, you will need to change the formula based on how much of your product will fit on a truck. For example: if you were shipping pillows and a truckload of pillows weighed only 10,000 pounds. I would have to adjust the calculation I just made above accordingly.

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