Exploring Carbon Offsets for Freight Transportation Decarbonization

Carbon offsets present a mechanism to leverage corporate sustainability commitments to fund fleet renewal programs, decommissioning aging trucks and replacing them with greener vehicles. This study evaluates the feasibility of this approach from a financial and logistical perspective. First, the dem...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Dame, Catherine, Hefny, Abdelrahman
Format: Thesis
Language:en_US
Published: 2020
Subjects:
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/126431
_version_ 1811097235136446464
author Dame, Catherine
Hefny, Abdelrahman
author_facet Dame, Catherine
Hefny, Abdelrahman
author_sort Dame, Catherine
collection MIT
description Carbon offsets present a mechanism to leverage corporate sustainability commitments to fund fleet renewal programs, decommissioning aging trucks and replacing them with greener vehicles. This study evaluates the feasibility of this approach from a financial and logistical perspective. First, the demand for transport carbon offsets is forecasted using inputs from global greenhouse gas emissions data, corporate sustainability commitments related to transportation, and CDP corporate disclosure data, pricing the potential mature market size at over $300M per year. Secondly, a novel method is defined to quantify the avoided emissions from decommissioning for a variety of vehicle types, leveraging industry standards for carbon accounting such as the Global Logistics Emissions Council Framework. Finally, the study breaks down the costs associated with a fleet renewal carbon offset program, and provides operational recommendations and best practices for fleet renewal programs. The analytical tools and frameworks developed in this study can be utilized to support the design and implementation of a transportation-based carbon offset program that has the potential to drive significant impact in global carbon emissions reduction.
first_indexed 2024-09-23T16:56:26Z
format Thesis
id mit-1721.1/126431
institution Massachusetts Institute of Technology
language en_US
last_indexed 2024-09-23T16:56:26Z
publishDate 2020
record_format dspace
spelling mit-1721.1/1264312020-11-23T17:41:01Z Exploring Carbon Offsets for Freight Transportation Decarbonization Dame, Catherine Hefny, Abdelrahman Sustainability Transportation Carbon offsets present a mechanism to leverage corporate sustainability commitments to fund fleet renewal programs, decommissioning aging trucks and replacing them with greener vehicles. This study evaluates the feasibility of this approach from a financial and logistical perspective. First, the demand for transport carbon offsets is forecasted using inputs from global greenhouse gas emissions data, corporate sustainability commitments related to transportation, and CDP corporate disclosure data, pricing the potential mature market size at over $300M per year. Secondly, a novel method is defined to quantify the avoided emissions from decommissioning for a variety of vehicle types, leveraging industry standards for carbon accounting such as the Global Logistics Emissions Council Framework. Finally, the study breaks down the costs associated with a fleet renewal carbon offset program, and provides operational recommendations and best practices for fleet renewal programs. The analytical tools and frameworks developed in this study can be utilized to support the design and implementation of a transportation-based carbon offset program that has the potential to drive significant impact in global carbon emissions reduction. 2020-07-29T20:25:20Z 2020-07-29T20:25:20Z 2020-07-29 Thesis https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/126431 en_US application/pdf
spellingShingle Sustainability
Transportation
Dame, Catherine
Hefny, Abdelrahman
Exploring Carbon Offsets for Freight Transportation Decarbonization
title Exploring Carbon Offsets for Freight Transportation Decarbonization
title_full Exploring Carbon Offsets for Freight Transportation Decarbonization
title_fullStr Exploring Carbon Offsets for Freight Transportation Decarbonization
title_full_unstemmed Exploring Carbon Offsets for Freight Transportation Decarbonization
title_short Exploring Carbon Offsets for Freight Transportation Decarbonization
title_sort exploring carbon offsets for freight transportation decarbonization
topic Sustainability
Transportation
url https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/126431
work_keys_str_mv AT damecatherine exploringcarbonoffsetsforfreighttransportationdecarbonization
AT hefnyabdelrahman exploringcarbonoffsetsforfreighttransportationdecarbonization