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The idea of the UK's ultra-competitive supermarkets agreeing to share space on delivery trucks would have seemed unlikely a few years ago. In an industry more used to cutting one another's throats than helping each other out, competition rather than co-operation was the driving principle.

That's why it was mildly startling when the IGD (formerly the Institute of Grocery Distribution) revealed a few weeks ago that 40 of the UK's biggest supermarkets  and food producers have agreed to share space on trucks to save fuel and cut pollution. However unlikely such co-operation might once have seemed, it does make good economic and environmental sense. Geoff Dossetter, external affairs director for the Freight Transport Association (FTA), says: "The increasing price of fuel has made it even more essential. You have got to squeeze every ounce of efficiency out of your distribution process, and sharing loads is one way to do it."

Maximising efficiency in this way is nothing new to hauliers. It is exactly why groupage operators first consolidated loads. It is also why "empty running" is such a painful phrase for hauliers: an empty vehicle makes no profit. It may have to happen sometimes, as in the old cliché about dustbin lorries going out empty but coming back full and petrol tankers going out full and coming back empty, but economic imperatives mean it is likely to happen less  and less. The long-term fuel price is likely to continue rising and environmental worries are not going to disappear overnight.

Tarun Patel, supply chain programme manager at the IGD, certainly believes co-operative distribution will increase. The IGD recently asked 100 of its members about whether shared facilities will be a fact of life in 10 years time and 75% said yes. But Patel downplays the idea of supermarkets sharing trucks with other supermarkets. This may happen but he says that "the greater opportunity is for co-operation between retailers and manufacturers".

One example of this is the truck-sharing scheme already in place in which Tesco and Unilever work together to share transport between Unilever's Doncaster distribution centre and Tesco's distribution centre in Goole. Previously, health and beauty products including Dove, Lynx and Sure were delivered directly by Unilever to Tesco, but now returning Tesco trucks pass through Doncaster and pick up loads for delivery to Goole.

The IGD makes substantial claims for the benefits of these schemes, saying that they will result in 48 million fewer miles driven in the UK in 2008, equivalent to taking 800 trucks off the road and saving 23 million litres of diesel. Other firms involved included Asda, Marks & Spencer, Sainsbury's, Morrisons, Coca-Cola, Nestlé and United Biscuits.

Almost all observers say that such schemes are likely to become more widespread. Karen Packham, the FTA's head of consultancy, says: "It is a clear consequence of the economic climate and environmental pressures. Even the biggest organisations need to find innovative ways of cutting costs. And while some of these firms may be fierce competitors in a retail sense, they suffer similar pressures on cost, which they can help one another solve."

Packham sees the trend towards shared loads as a natural continuation of other developments in the UK haulage business, such as the consolidation centres at Heathrow airport and in Bristol. She adds: "We are really only at base one with this sort of thing. We are going to see much more of it in the long term and one of the keys is going to be proper commercial arrangements so that competition in the market is not affected." Load sharing between competitors, it would seem, is not as unnatural as all that. It is more like capitalism's way of dealing with economic and environmental adversity.