Assessment of international trade-related transport CO2 emissions—a logistics responsibility perspective

Abstract

International supply chains generate substantial amounts of CO2 emissions. However, established methodologies for national freight transport emission assessments do not consider such international perspectives sufficiently. This research aims to show how logistic responsibility may be used in ex post transport CO2 emission assessments, for macrologistic or supply chain levels. We propose an original approach to estimate and allocate CO2 emissions generated by international freight transport between trade countries. The proposed method relies on the applied Incoterms® rules in sales contracts. A new indicator, the index of responsibility for transport emissions (RTEindex), is introduced to allocate bilateral trade-related transport CO2 emissions. This is the first time that the Incoterms® clauses are used for macrologistic assessments of international trade-related transport CO2 emissions. Our approach is exemplified using bilateral trade-related transport flows between Serbia and other European countries. The introduced RTE-index is expected to help visualise average national trade-related transport CO2 emission responsibilities; increase awareness regarding environmental considerations among trade parties, logistics companies, and national organisations; and provide new perspectives for environmental transport policy actions.