Episode 86 | Decarbonizing the Supply Chain

Craig Harper, Chief Sustainability Officer and Executive Vice President, J.B. Hunt Transport Service joined Grayson Brulte on The Road To Autonomy Podcast to discuss decarbonizing the supply chain. 

The conversation begins with Craig discussing the reason why he stepped into the role of Chief Sustainability Officer in late 2020. When he began to develop J.B. Hunt’s sustainability plan he started by understanding how J.B. Hunt is perceived in the marketplace and by rating agencies. 

It’s been a good progress, steps to go through looking at those different rating agencies seeing how they each interpret different segments of the business and where we need to improve. – Craig Harper

On Monday, April 4, 2022 J.B. Hunt launched their CLEAN Transport Program to help customers reduce the carbon footprint of their supply chain. 

Intermodal is a great offering that we have, provides significant benefit to our customer, to citizens across the globe with a 60% reduction on the amount of carbon that it takes to move the same load from point-to-point all the way by truck versus what it takes to move intermodal. 

But even when you get that 60% reduction, you still have some residual carbon. And it’s like what are we going to do with this? This is where carbon offsets come in, and what that does it allows a customer to purchase offsets that fund an activity that reduces carbon and make their transport carbon neutral. – Craig Harper

While we wait for electric trucks to scale, intermodal offers an opportunity for shippers to reduce their carbon emissions by 60% today.

As an organization we said publicly we feel like there is somewhere between 7 to 11 million more loads that could be converted to intermodal. – Craig Harper

Another way to reduce carbon emissions is renewable diesel. In 2020, 51% of all of the fuel J.B. Hunt purchased was a bio-blended diesel product. Today, the company’s total weighted average of fuel from renewable sources is 8%. 

More and more renewable diesel is coming online each and every day, that is going to be great for the industry. – Craig Harper

J.B. Hunt has a culture of innovation. From embracing renewable diesel to entering into a market study with Waymo to pilot autonomous trucks, J.B. Hunt continues to look forward towards the future. Prior to entering into a market study agreement, Craig visited the Waymo team in Chandler, AZ and took a ride in Waymo’s fully autonomous vehicle. The trip was a culmination of a trusted relationship. 

As it relates the deployment of autonomous trucks, Craig shared the following insight:

We believe that the technology will indeed pull certain types of freight on certain lanes and we are excited to play a part in it. – Craig Harper

Even as autonomous trucks scale, skilled professional drivers will continue to play a significant role in the future of the trucking industry. 

Wrapping up the conversation, Craig and Grayson discussed the infrastructure that is needed to scale electric heavy-duty trucks.

Recorded on Monday, April 4, 2022

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