As Isotrak's Craig Sears-Black talked about moving cauliflowers from the Fens to Westminster, I wondered how long vegetable supplier Marshalls would be working from the area.

Sears-Black was speaking at the Freight Transport Association (FTA) conference about carbon emissions on the same day the Met Office produced worrying forecasts on the effects of global warming in the UK - among them rising sea levels. Marshalls ships cauliflowers out of a Boston, Lincolnshire distribution centre, which sits in the middle of a mass of reclaimed land, close to current sea level. Beyond sea defences, a few miles away, the ocean is rising at an alarming rate, according to the Met Office. Some nearby farmland has already been given back to the sea, in a process dubbed 'managed retreat'.

The point of Sears-Black's talk was to show that, by sharing data online, hauliers can cut the miles they run without cargo. This is something UK firms have become good at largely because of the extortionate fuel duty levied by the government.

And this is where the industry is missing a trick, says the FTA's managing director of policy and communication, James Hookham. While fuel duty has forced efficiency, the industry hasn't told many people. Instead, protesters threaten blockades and don't endear hauliers to the public. Fuel duty may be unfair, but the government has calculated the electorate doesn't care how much hauliers pay.

So, instead of confronting the government head-on about fuel duty, Hookham says, it's better to highlight how transport can help combat global warming.

In an industry where cash equals fuel equals carbon, cutting emissions can help the planet... and your bank balance. Hookham says it's time to engage in this 'green' debate. And it's time that the industry backed him.

Believe it or not, there's money to be made at this environment game.

Just look at Marks & Spencer's latest corporate sustainability report: How we do business 2009. This highlights the progress it's made towards the targets set as part of its ambitious Plan A programme, launched in January 2007.

If you ignore the sections that are clearly not relevant to your business (at least we assume you have no financial interest in the sustainability or otherwise of your underwear), then it makes interesting reading.

Not least of which is the headline figure showing that after two years - and bear in mind that M&S was prepared to throw £200m at the project over five years - the initiative is already "cost positive". That means that despite the serious levels of investment the company has made - those Teardrop trailers don't come cheap after all - it is still seeing its initiatives save it money.

Of course in the real world not everyone has the capital available to replace their trailer fleet with swish new aero models, nor would everybody find them appropriate.

However, away from the headline-grabbing kit, the more significant achievement, to our eyes at least, is the impressive improvement it has made to its store-delivery operation.

Revised schedules have lead to a 23% reduction in fuel per drop on its food operation and a fall of 20% in non-food. By any measure, those are impressive figures.

Now imagine what cutting your fuel bill by 20% could mean for your bottom line.
Remember - being environmentally friendly isn't just about investing millions to cut CO2 emissions. There's also something to be said for going green in order to stay in the black.

According to ESMT Competition Analysis:

"It is reported that General Motors and Magna have reached an agreement to provide €1.5bn ($2.1bn) worth of emergency financing to save Opel - the GM owned carmaker - from insolvency. This follows hot on the heels of Fiat pulling out of financing talks earlier today, and in the wake of heated discussions between Berlin and Washington after the revelation that a shock $415m was required to keep the European business afloat."
 
Dr. Rainer Nitsche, Managing Director of ESMT Competition Analysis, the Competition arm of the Berlin-based international business school, says:
 
"The handling of negotiations only confirms the need for a pan-European bankruptcy procedure to match that of the US, to take the politics out of the negotiating room. The web of bankruptcy frameworks currently in place on national lines is no longer fit for purpose. While these are intended to enable the workable rehabilitation of a distressed company, overall these do not give the level of support of Chapter 11, nor do they take account of the emergence of global businesses which require more cohesive support.
 
"Until this is changed, the stigma of bankruptcy and fear of insolvency will lead to politicised, protectionist action on the part of European governments, making it difficult to judge the effective and rightful deployment of state aid. The extent of the positive assurances we have seen from Europe's nations in fighting for their national champions, has left them little room to manoeuvre even before discussion talks had begun. European governments needed to keep their cards close to their chest. Instead, the Ace of Spades was handed to Washington long before they even reached the bargaining table."

Interesting views in a rapidly developing story.

Little numbers get big pretty quickly in the road haulage industry.

This week Kevin Swallow reports for Motor Transport on the performance of trucks which are powered by a mixture of liquid natural gas and diesel. It turns out you could save £2.83 when the truck goes 100km. Not quite enough to buy a Marks & Spencer sandwich.

But hang on. For an annual mileage of 100,000km, you could save £2,830 for each of these dual-fuel vehicles. So, with a fleet of 354 vehicles, a company could save £1 million on fuel. Thirty three of the top 50 road transport firms have fleets bigger than that, according to Motor Transport's most recent survey. Surely that's something to chew on. 
 

The full test of duel-fuel vehicles will appear in Commercial Motor on 11 June and on Roadtransport.com at about the same time.

Following a baking bank holiday, the rain poured down on the RT office and so too on the haulage industry.

News came in that Stiller Transport, a lesser-know subsidiary of Stiller Group, was in a meeting from 11.30am to discuss voluntary liquidation with its creditors. We tracked the story online and followed with interviews for Motor Transport and Commercial Motor.

More misery comes in the shape of SMMT figures for the production of commercial vehicles, which showed a 65% drop in supply over a year. Along with news from the broader economy, such as a disastrous fall in consumer spending, it shows we're not out of these recessionary woods just yet.

A lighter note was supplied by the inimitable London Mayor Boris Johnson. Late last week it turns out he had a near miss with a lorry. Maybe it was a subtle sign of industry feeling on Johnson's declaration that he may look again at expanding the London's Low Emission Zones, which have provoked such industry ire.

Another week and another foaming-at-the-mouth press release from Freight on Rail (slogan: 'Where dumb ideas come for company'). The gist of which is that those sneaky unelected Eurocrats are trying to force "Mega Trucks" (its words) on the upstanding citizens of Europe, the absolute cads.

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