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INTERDISCIPLINARY JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY RESEARCH IN BUSINESS
1. Introduction
1.1 Background
JANURAY 2011
VOL 2, NO 9
During the last decades of the 20 th century, it is agreed that we are carrying out our economic
activities in such a way that is harmful for the natural environment. It is also recognized that
the methods being used can be less harmful and more sustainable. New concepts came in
existence like ―Sustainable Forestry‖, ―Sustainable Manufacturing‖, ―Sustainable
Agriculture‖, ―Sustainable Tourism‖ and ―Sustainable Transport‖. ―Sustainable Transport‖
concept is important because most of the vehicles use ―Petroleum‖ rather than other types of
energy. The major question at this point is: What is the future demand for this fuel and will the
planet be able to supply it? The vessels and vehicles that move freight today are powered by
petroleum; this is true for 95% of the freight movements. So, transport systems are nonsustainable
because of ―Fuel‖ that is finite and nonrenewable (Leinbach and Capineri, 2007).
Moreover, current transport system is placing emissions in the atmosphere that will eventually
have impacts on the global climate. The impacts have already begun. The negative impacts of
these emissions, mainly on the human body, must be viewed as a significant problem that
can‘t be allowed. Transport system is becoming more non-sustainable (Leinbach and Capineri,
2007).
Additionally, it is true that a transport system that kills users is not sustainable. It is found that
world‘s motor vehicle fleet is responsible for nearly a million fatalities each year and almost
70 million injuries. Forecast of future fatalities for the next years are beyond comprehension.
Policy makers don‘t want to include these dimensions as indicators (Leinbach and Capineri,
2007).
Energy consumed is equivalent to fuel consumed and emission are a function of fuel
consumed (it also depends on speed and type of vehicle), it is apparent that from an air quality
and global climate views motor carriers should be used in the least cases in comparison with
waterborne and rail transport. Moreover, in this case, in addition to the emissions, we have
accidents, excessive fuel use and congestion. The port-to-port moves are perhaps the most
suitable because waterborne modes tend to pollute the environment the least (Leinbach and
Capineri, 2007).
As the below table shows that short sea shipping tends to emit the smallest grams of emissions
for most of the pollutants of interest today. The exception is the sulfur dioxide (SO2) which is
higher in such vessels because of high sulfur content of the fuel used for that mode. But, if we
use other modes to move the freight, they would pollute more (Leinbach and Capineri, 2007).
Mode CO HC PM NOx SO2 CO2
Road .479 .227 .078 .978 .031 98.301
Rail .196 .098 .027 .472 .036 28.338
Short-sea Shipping .036 .012 .006 .311 .290 15.450
Ocean Shipping .048 .016 .0483 .499 N.A. N.A.
Table 1: Emissions (in grams/ton kilometer) for freight modes
Source: Commission of the European Communities (1999), US Maritime Administration Cited By
Leinbach and Capineri (2007)
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