Industry News
SmartWay Grow and Go Promotes Renewable Fuels
Looking for ways your company can be greener in its everyday operations? The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) SmartWay Grow and Go program can help. It reaches out to carrying and shipping companies committed to using renewable fuels and provides resources to help them successfully implement these fuels into their operations.
Launched in October 2006, the SmartWay Grow and Go program expands on EPA's original SmartWay Transport Partnership, which encouraged the freight industry to use energy-efficient technologies, such as idle reduction equipment and low-rolling resistance tires. In just three years, the Transport Partnership grew to more than 600 members--75% of them carriers, 25% shippers--and claims to have displaced more than 350 million gallons of diesel fuel and kept nearly 4 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions out of U.S. skies. The voluntary Grow and Go program encourages companies to commit to using biodiesel and ethanol in response to the President's fuel displacement initiative. Forty-eight companies have already signed on. They include General Motors, Coca-Cola, Safeway, and Anheuser-Busch.
Under the Grow and Go program, partners commit to using biodiesel in heavy-duty vehicles and ethanol in light-duty fleets. The goal is for 25% of the program partners to commit to using renewable fuels by 2012 and 50% to commit by 2020. While the Transport Partnership rigorously assesses member companies' fuel use, EPA does not yet have an accurate projection on how much petroleum and carbon emissions the Grow and Go program will displace once it reaches its goal. But judging from the success of the Transport Partnership, EPA expects it to be "significant."
Although renewable fuels are a large focus of the Grow and Go program, it still supports the Transport Partnership's original mission: energy efficiency. That's why EPA is now collaborating with the Small Business Administration and three lenders to provide expedited, flexible-term loans to obtain energy-efficiency equipment. With idle reduction auxiliary power units costing between $8,000 and $9,000, this can be a great help for small trucking companies.
For more information on the SmartWay Grow and Go program, visit the EPA Web site, which includes a cost savings calculator, contacts for the loan program, and links to extensive information on trucking energy-efficiency technologies.
