The FTA has urged operators to join its Logistics Carbon Reduction Scheme (LCRS) to strengthen its efforts to avoid government action over commercial vehicle emissions.
Evidence from the scheme, which published its second annual report this week, will be submitted to the DfT's Freight Review later this year. The FTA hopes the evidence will convince the review - which is looking at the efforts the sector is making to cut emissions - that there is no need to regulate to shrink its carbon footprint.
Rachael Dillon, FTA climate change policy manager, says: "The DfT has not taken any action yet over the contribution of freight to greenhouse gas emissions and that is partly down to the LCRS. There is no sector-based target at the moment, and hopefully the government can leave us to get on with the job of making these reductions."
Over the past year, the LCRS has grown from 45 to 59 members and now covers 56,713 HGVs and vans (39,063 in 2010). However, the bigger the membership the greater the weight of the evidence. Dillon adds: "We [need] to increase the number of participants joining the scheme. They don't have to be FTA members, it is free to join and most operators should already be collecting the data as a matter of course."
The report reveals that participants achieved a collective reduction in carbon emissions of 2.6% between 2009 and 2010, and are on course to meet the target of an 8% reduction in emissions by 2015 (compared to 2010 levels).
