The transition to electric vehicles will not come quick enough for Australia to improve the energy productivity of transport to meet our Paris Agreement targets. Road freight in Australia continues to increase but its energy efficiency is not improving. In fact, Australia's performance is falling well behind Europe and the USA. Stronger efficiency standards are needed.
Not all solutions require new, more efficient hardware though. Higher energy productivity in transport can be achieved simply with smarter systems and new behaviours integrated in to the ways we work.
SECTORS - FREIGHT TRANSPORT
Improving the energy productivity of freight transport
Our aspiration is to improve energy productivity and accelerate decarbonisation across the Australian economy. Collaborating with industry experts, we have developed an assessment of the obstacles and opportunities in doubling the energy productivity of the freight transport sector. This report explained the extent of improvements possible via known technologies, the expected various levels of disruption that will hit the sector, and the identifies measures that could help smooth the transition to a much more energy-productive freight sector.
With insights gained from hosting a Freight Transport Roundtable together with Mov3ment in March 2020, we have published an updated roadmap to accelerate freight productivity. It highlights the enormous potential to improve freight productivity while also reducing emissions and it identifies actions essential to unlock opportunity.
On 5 February 2021, the Australian Government announced a $99 million investment in the future of road transport including $25 million for a freight-specific energy productivity program. The detail is subject to development through public consultation, with responses to the Future Fuels Strategy discussion paper due no later than Friday 2 April, 2021.
Energy productivity success stories in the freight transport sector
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HAVI Logistics Asia - SuperCool Group