The most common barrier to greening fleets is cost, government report finds
Very few Trucking fleets are applying for Canada’s “Green Freight Program,” Blacklocks reported on May 16th. Only five per cent of respondents to a government survey had participated in government funding programs, while only 18 per cent of trucking executives surveyed had even heard of the program.
“There is little ‘greening’ of the nation’s commercial truck fleet despite offers of $250,000 federal grants, Blacklocks quotes in-house research by the Department of Natural Resources (DNR). Cabinet has targeted transportation as a key polluter that accounts for 22 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions.
DNR launched a Green Freight Program on December 12m 2022 with an offer to pay 50 percent grants up to a quarter million to refit diesel trucks to improve fuel efficiency and lower emissions. Only 18 percent of trucking executives surveyed heard of the program, said the report Green Freight Program Survey On The Freight Industry.
“The most common barrier identified by companies is cost,” said Green Freight. “An important finding is that most companies have not implemented any retrofits to their fleet in recent years,” wrote researchers. “For a number of these companies the cost associated with implementing retrofits is considered as a main barrier.”
“Nearly three quarters of the companies surveyed, 74 percent, have not implemented any retrofits to the trucks in their fleet in the past three years,” wrote researchers. “The findings “will be used to enhance the department’s understanding of inflection points and potential federal funding assistance needs to increase the uptake of zero emission vehicle purchases and retrofits.”
