The Clean Technology centre, as a partner in the ETTAR project, has co-hosted a 2nd workshop on environmental technologies in transport sector in Prague on 24th and 25th January 2008.
The workshop, entitled Barriers to the Take up of More Efficient Transport and Logistics Planning and Training and Awareness Raising Methods was very well attended with participants from several countries and several areas within the transport and logistics sectors.
Details of the Workshop can be found by clicking here. The Conclusions are listed below.
Workshop Conclusions:
The workshop has dedicated itself to identify first approaches to improve the environmental performance of the freight transport sector, especially by awareness raising, industrial networking and training.
The following points have been deduced as summarising facts from the preceding discussions:
– Plenty of projects improving the environmental performance of freight transport can be undertaken in the existing framework, i.e. without any additional legislation or large investments, by environmentally aware and enthusiastic people;
– While there exists enough potential for environmental improvements, there is not enough motivation on the part of the logistics industry, instruments need thus to be applied to raise motivation (good practice cases, pressure from NGOs and customers, further legislation, etc.)
– Technical problems to measure the environmental impacts persist and should be tackled (e.g. the measuring of the environmental footprint); solutions to measure the impact need to be applied and the results be used as a basis to make decisions on the different transport options;
– Existing networks should be motivated; Pilot Projects play an important role to raise awareness and to spread good practice, they help do discuss issues with policy makers; also the negative lessons learnt should be disseminated,;
– Green public procurement could very much help companies to take up environmentally friendly transport solutions;
– To convince decision makers in a firm to employ environmental solutions, (approximately) cost-neutral solutions should be developed first, yet they do not provide an overall solution, as a considerable environmental improvement often requires a raise in costs;
– The issue of environmental improvement in the freight transport sector is a complex problem, which cannot be solved at once: showcases should be developed within a limited sphere;
As a consequence from these points, (voluntary) industrial networking and specific training activities can be regarded as vital instruments to promote the use of environmentally advanced transport technology and transport modes. Thus, these activities need to be reinforced and promoted also from the side of policy makers.