Climate group collects aggregated demand for green trucking

The climate non-profit group Center for Green Market Activation (GMA) is reaching out to freight carriers to gather information on their existing zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) deployments, interest in expanding ZEV fleets, experience with renewable energy and green fuels, and preferences around multi-year offtake terms.

Toward that goal, the group has now opened a request for information (RFI) to fleets. And GMA says it is on track to launch its first pilot procurement of zero-emission trucking service this Fall.

When that begins, GMA says it will bundle demand from shippers, so carriers with green trucks will have guaranteed loads to carry. In that way, GMA Trucking and its member companies aim to overcome traditional decarbonization hurdles by using a “book-and-claim” system for heavy-duty road transportation, thus scaling up the adoption of zero-emission heavy-duty trucks.

According to the group, that approach is also used in other markets, such as renewable electricity certificates (RECs), sustainable aviation fuel certificates (SAFc), and, recently, maritime services. Such systems have proven catalytic to market adoption and acceleration of critical technologies and offer a replicable model to drive the decarbonization of other high-emitting industries, GMA said.

"Heavy duty trucking accounts for more than 3% of global carbon emissions.  Yet, as in other hard-to-abate sectors, deployment of decarbonized solutions has been painfully slow," Kim Carnahan, GMA CEO, said in a release. "With this announcement, GMA member companies have the opportunity to take demand aggregation where it's needed most, applying the book-and-claim model to road freight in order to rapidly accelerate the adoption of zero-emission trucks."

Founding members of the GMA Trucking buyers' alliance, which launched in September 2023, include companies such as PepsiCo, Meta, eBay, REI Co-op, and Green Worldwide Shipping. By aggregating their business, GMA Trucking is targeting preliminary volumes for battery electric or hydrogen fuel cell vehicles of up to 110 million ton-miles (or seven million miles with a weighted average payload of 14 tons) per year.

As well as keeping existing green trucks busy, shipping that way will help GMA Trucking members purchase attributes to make progress towards their greenhouse gas targets and send a strong demand signal to carriers, OEMs, and infrastructure providers to continue investments in zero-emission transportation services.

Also this week, GMA Trucking said it has formalized its strategic partnership with the Smart Freight Centre (SFC), an international non-profit organization based in the Netherlands that is focused on reducing greenhouse gas emissions from freight transportation.

"The Smart Freight Centre has been focused on book-and-claim systems for many years because they create the flexibility needed to drive greater investment into low-carbon transportation solutions," Christoph Wolff, CEO of Smart Freight Centre, said in a release. "Our Fleet Electrification Coalition also channels aggregated demand for electric trucking services towards collaborative real-world projects. We look forward to contributing our tools, guidance materials, and expertise to help this program succeed and more rapidly decarbonize the road freight sector."