With the financial support of Colombia UK-Pact and led by Los Andes University in association with Cardiff University, we want to contribute to building a roadmap towards zero emissions in Road Freight Transport (RFT) with the participation of the private and public sectors and the academy.

For that purpose, we promote truck renewal, as well as the adoption of low-emission technologies and better environmental practices within the trucking sector in Colombia. It involves research on the feasibility of the adoption of alternative technologies and other green practices within the Colombian RFT sector. It also impacts the capacity to build by undertaking quantitative analysis and analytical modelling, and ensuring a two-way knowledge exchange between the project and its key stakeholders. In this way, we contribute to the decarbonization of the Colombian transport sector.

How do we do it? Our work focuses on four strategic dimensions: fleet configuration, fleet management, safe and efficient driving, and logistics optimization. Therefore, we have a multidisciplinary team of experts that analyze these topics in the local context and gain insight from studying international projects and initiatives.

Giro Zero’s team is formed by professors from the Business Administration Faculty and the Urban and Regional Sustainability Study Group (SUR) of the Faculty of Engineering of Los Andes University. We also have the valuable contribution of professors from Cardiff University in the United Kingdom, who master the issues of sustainable transport, logistics and green supply chain. Meet the Giro Zero team in the section “About us”

In addition, we work with our main beneficiaries: the Colombian Federation of Road Freight Transporters (Colfecar), the National Association of Colombian Businessmen (Andi), the Ministry of Transport, the Ministry of Environment and the National Planning Department (DNP).

We are building a collaborative network of dialogue between RFT public and private sector actors to exchange information, knowledge and experiences. Through this research we identify barriers, drivers and trends. We know the existent gaps, which helps us propose joint improvements and close them.

This network also contemplates the creation of training spaces, such as seminars and workshops, to strengthen the interested parties’ capacities and improve their abilities.
Furthermore, based on the results of our analysis, we create new collaborative tools to build monitoring indicators for environmental performance. At the end of the project, Giro Zero will give the RFT sector recommendations on strategies to reduce emissions to zero. In addition, it will deliver recommendations to policy makers, so they can make decisions about public policies that contribute to decarbonizing the industry.

Expected results

1. Recommendations and guidelines relevant to each type of stakeholder.
2. Strategic business plan to identify feasible and impactful green practices applicable to the Colombian RFT sector.
3. Road map towards a zero emissions RFT sector.
4. Feasibility analysis of adopting green practices.
5. Repository of project outputs, including the Sustainable Performance Index, KPI dashboard, scenario simulator, cost estimations, case-studies and road map.
6. Seminars and workshops with stakeholders.
7. Academic and industry papers produced throughout the project for the benefit of key stakeholders.
8. Collaborative networks among key stakeholders that could potentially benefit the sector as a whole by ensuring measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) of emissions generated within the sector, and data sharing among stakeholders.

The project will contribute to enhanced and sustained action on climate change by:

1. Gaining greater understanding across key stakeholders on benefits of a greener RFT sector in Colombia via project outputs and outcomes.
2. Enhancing capabilities for the measurement of environmental performance.
3. Proposing strategies for monitoring and improving green credentials of the RFT sector in Colombia.
4. Identifying roadblocks that impede the adoption of green practices by Colombian RFT companies and logistics service providers.
5. Proposing strategies that augment the adoption of these practices by Colombian RFT companies and logistics service providers.
6. Exchanging existing and new knowledge with key stakeholders
7. Reducing the environmental impact generated by the Colombian RFT sector, through the adoption of cleaner technologies and recommended strategies.