The supply chain has a massive impact on climate change, responsible for roughly 60% of all carbon emissions. It’s essential, therefore, to improve how we manufacture and transport products in order to meet carbon-reduction and net-zero commitments by governments and corporations around the world. At the same time, a reduction in supply chain emissions can drive massive savings for companies, investors and consumers.

Electrification has become a critical part of corporate strategies for reducing transport-related emissions and costs. Electricity can be generated from renewable sources, and electric motors are far more energy-efficient than internal combustion engines.

In the consumer realm, we’ve seen a massive spike in electric vehicle adoption. Thanks to subsidies and greater awareness about cost and performance, 2.4 million EVs are on the road in the U.S. today, with an impressive growth trajectory. But how can we bring the same rapid adoption of electrification to the supply chain? 

The natural target is heavy-duty vehicles (HDVs), the large trucks roaming the freeways that carry up to 80,000 pounds of cargo each. One in 10 on-road vehicles is an HDV, yet they emit 28% of greenhouse gas emissions. Additionally, the refrigerated trailers they pull use around three-quarters of a gallon of fuel per hour, whether the truck is moving or not. That’s more than 6,500 gallons each year, burning through diesel fuel as workers load or unload cargo — or simply keep cargo cool. It’s a gigantic waste, and across the country, it adds up to millions of gallons of fuel and millions of tons of CO₂ emitted for no good reason.

Electrifying these hulks of the highway seems like the obvious place to start. But today, that’s only viable in a small number of applications, due to lower range, higher costs and slower refueling times than their diesel alternatives. Even with incentives, the current state of technology isn’t ready for deployment at large scale. The technology is quickly improving, though, and as batteries become cheaper, lighter and more energy-dense, a greater number of applications will become viable for electrification. Still, it’s a process that will take years, if not decades.   

In the meantime, however, electrification can still make a huge — and profitable — dent in HDV emissions here and now.

Rather than trying to electrify the entire truck, we should focus on the part of the truck that delivers far better value: the refrigerated trailer.

There are around 500,000 transport refrigeration units (TRUs) — essentially, freezers on wheels — on U.S. roads. Serving as the backbone of the cold chain, they can never turn off their refrigeration lest their contents risk spoilage. Even if a truck isn’t moving, it’s burning .8 gallons of diesel fuel per hour to idle. Within the cold chain alone, this idling can cost up to $5,600 a year per truck, and emit up to 11 million tons of CO₂. Multiply that across a fleet with hundreds of trucks, and those costs skyrocket to the tune of millions per month.

This is where electrification makes perfect sense. By focusing on the refrigerated trailer, we can replace dirty diesel fuel with electricity, which can lower operational costs by as much as 75%, and reduce emissions by as much as 95%. With a hybrid-electric TRU that can run both on diesel or electricity, there’s no need to run the diesel engine while sitting in a loading dock; simply plug it in. And eTRU trailers aren’t much more expensive than diesel-only units, enabling payback in just a few months.

Not only is electrifying the trailer efficient for transportation, but it’s also good for the distribution center. DCs can now add an entirely new revenue stream — selling electricity to electrified trailers—which can lead to new annual revenue upwards of $600,000, while improving air quality at the same time. DCs can also renovate their loading docks incrementally to meet demand. It’s not hard to imagine a future where selling electricity becomes a lucrative part of their business.

Heavy-duty vehicles have been contributing to climate change since the late 19th century, and their impact has only gone up as the demand for goods has soared. Electrification must be part of the solution, but full truck electrification isn’t viable today on a large scale. It’s important to start strategically, delivering such compelling value that even the most conservative of supply chain operators can’t say no. Best of all, the first wave of electrification will win powerful advocates who will help spread change and ultimately drive technology enhancements that take us to entire fleet electrification — in a way that delivers on both the environmental and financial returns that these companies desperately need.

Manuel Aguirre is vice president of supply chain electrification at Ndustrial.