As a transportation company, we need diesel and gasoline for our daily operations, but we’re embracing innovative ways to minimize our environmental footprint. From our fleet to our facilities, we evaluate our impact and look at how we can implement new technologies to do better and take care of our planet.

Our approach

Our efforts are led by our Environmental & Innovation team. They stay current on new developments in the industry and forge future-focused partnerships that help us play a role in emerging sustainability solutions. Our team ensures we’re not just embracing new technologies to reduce our impact, we’re backing it with strategy too. For example, when piloting electric trucks, we look at how green the grid is in our locations to maximize our impact. If it’s heavily powered by coal, the emissions from the grid will be equal to our diesel and gasoline trucks. That’s why we’ve chosen to pilot our electric trucks in Quebec where they use almost 100% renewable energy.

As one of Canada’s largest transportation companies, we also recognize that we have the capacity and responsibility to be testing early-stage technologies at the ground level. We’re partnering with green technology vendors to test their innovations, give feedback, and help make them better so other transportation companies can follow suit. Right now, we’re testing the Autocar electric shunt truck at our York, Pennsylvania location – an innovation that’s yet to be widely embraced across the industry.

No matter the technology or advancements, we equip our teams with training and knowledge to help them do better and leverage our sustainability efforts.

How we’re making a difference

We understand that our biggest environmental footprint comes down to our fleet and our facilities. From on-the-road emissions to energy usage in our terminals, we’re looking at how we can challenge the status quo.

Optimizing our fleet:

• We continue to partner with electric truck vendors to test their technology where it makes sense for the electrical grid and our business, including Lion Electric and eCascadia trucks in Quebec saving 40 tons of CO2 per year.
• We’ve rolled out 1,200 rear faring devices across our fleet since 2019, improving the fuel efficiency of our fleet.
• We have 100+ Long Combination Vehicles (LCVs), improving freight efficiency by 35+%.
• Over 60% of our North American forklift fleet is now electric.
• We manage fleet turnover wisely – we replaced 300+ fleet vehicles in the last 12 months, resulting in cleaner burning engines, improved fuel economy, and improved features like idle reduction technologies.
• Our new reefers come equipped with an updated refrigerant (R452A), which cuts the Global Warming Potential (GWP) in half from the previous version (R404A).

State-of-the-art facilities

• We’ve adopted a new environmental standard for the construction of our terminals across North America.
• Our new and renovated state-of-the-art terminals include solar panels, energy efficient heating and cooling for the office, high efficiency wall systems for the dock, LED lighting, electric forklifts, and charging stations for employee vehicles.
• We’re conducting ongoing energy audits across our network, which have led to a reduction of 2.4 million kilowatt-hours annually since 2017. 
  
  

In recognition of our commitment to continuous improvement across all areas of our corporate ESG program, we’ve also received a Bronze medal from EcoVadis.

Check out our Sustainability page for more updates, resources, and videos about our environmental initiatives.