Continental Tire North America Inc. says it has officially exceeded its goal of increased compliance with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s SmartWay Transport Partnership.
Continental joined the program last year as a "Shipper Partner" (see "CTNA joins EPA's SmartWay program," June 2, 2008), which required the company to reduce its environmental impacts from ground freight transportation.
In joining the partnership, Continental agreed to use the Freight Logistics Environmental and Energy Tracking (FLEET) Performance Model for Shippers to quantify its environmental performance level. The company was then required to maintain a score of at least 0.5 within the FLEET Performance Model.
Continental’s initial goal within the partnership was to achieve a FLEET Performance Model score of at least 0.95 within three years of joining the SmartWay program. At the end of its first year of partnership, after shipping more than 24 million tires to NAFTA countries, it already had achieved a score of 1.14 out of a maximum of 1.25. The score was verified by the EPA in June 2009.
“We made it a consideration of the carrier selection process that fleets operate as SmartWay Transport Carriers when considering bids, and encouraged carriers within our existing base who were not already a part of the SmartWay program to join.,” says Dominique Lacroix, Continental's director of supply chain operations.
"In doing so, we have achieved our goal to have the majority of our tire products shipped within these environmentally sensitive guidelines.”
The SmartWay Transport Partnership aims to save between 3.3 and 6.6 billion gallons of diesel fuel per year by 2012, which is the equivalent of removing 12 million passenger cars from the road.
In striving to achieve this reduction, SmartWay Transport Carriers pledge to implement idle reduction strategies, improve aerodynamics, use advanced freight logistics practices, reduce vehicle and equipment weights, implement driver training and use SmartWay-verified, fuel efficient technologies including wide base and low rolling resistant tires.
