New transport program measures the entire chain

NEW TRANSPORT ENVIRONMENTAL PROGRAM MEASURES THE ENTIRE CHAIN COULD BECOME THE FUTURE INDUSTRY STANDARD A completely new method of efficiently calculating and managing emissions and energy consumption throughout the transport chain, from production to final delivery to customers Each transport chain will have its own unique environmental profile, capable of covering all the various transport methods employed The new program means all transport stages can now be measured and subsequently evaluated from an environmental viewpoint This working concept is called Transport Chain Assessment and has been developed by the Swedish forest products group, STORA. It was launched at one of the STORA Group plants just outside London on December 9, 1996, in the presence of EU Commissioner Neil Kinnock and Sweden's Minister of Transport and Communications, Ines Uusmann. In a comment, Sweden's Minister of Transport and Communications Ines Uusmann says: "It feels appropriate that STORA, as a representative of the Swedish forest products industry, takes a leading role in transport environmental issues in Europe. The TCA concept is interesting. I believe it can become an effective instrument for reducing the adverse environmental effects associated with transports and a competitive tool towards the establishment of a new industry standard within the European community." STORA is one of Europe's largest purchasers of transport services and as such is now taking the initiative in developing a unique transport environmental program, which in future could become the industry standard. As a result of working with renewable raw materials and recyclable products, among other reasons, the Group has been deeply committed to and involved in environmental conservation for many years. The Group's raw materials and refined wood-based products are supplied to customers throughout the world. Accordingly, transports are long and often involve several different methods. Many observers predict that individual transports and the entire transport chains will be the next object of scrutiny within the environmental area. The significance of this and the shortcomings associated with current measurement methods are such that STORA, on its own initiative, decided that new ways of dealing with transport environmental issues must be prioritized. New approach Currently, the normal way of measuring emissions caused by transports is based on the use of the "average vehicle" in, for example, a delivery fleet, to represent an entire transport chain. The main drawback associated with this method of calculation relates to the difficulty of identifying any improvements other than those that would be achieved by replacing the entire mode of transport, or by improving the "average vehicle," which of course doesn't exist. This method runs the risk of remaining a drawingboard product, without any practical credibility. As a result, STORA has developed another, more broadly based, approach. Using STORA's Transport Environmental Program (STEP), it is possible to compute the emissions and energy consumption in a specific transport chain. In the first phase, a baseline is established, a reference point, which shows the various types of emissions and energy consumption from a specific transport. This