Should we use climate change to lobby on fuel duty?
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.
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