The Role of Transport Purchasing Companies in the Reduction of Freight Transport Emissions : The Opportunities and Barriers of Environmentally Friendly Freight Transport

Sammanfattning: The freight transport industry accounts for a large and, moreover, an increasing share of the global greenhouse gas emissions. Despite this, previous studies point to the fact that freight transport purchasing companies (TPCs) do not take sufficient action to reduce emissions from the freight transports they buy. Previous research has not thoroughly explored the variables that might alter this pattern found in company behavior. This thesis therefore aims to investigate what current opportunities and barriers TPCs experience and what practices these companies are utilizing to reduce freight transport emissions, in order to investigate how companies in general can be motivated to become greener. To fulfill this goal, a multiple case study was performed where qualitative data, collected through interviews, was gathered from 13 companies that are actively working to reduce their climate footprint. A theoretical framework, namely the PESTEL analysis, was furthermore utilized to analyze the macro-environment of the phenomena. The collected data was analyzed in accordance with the research questions, where the main research question concerns the role of TPCs in affecting environmental advancements and the opportunities and barriers TPCs face from a PESTEL perspective. The sub-research questions concern what motivational factors companies experience regarding the implementation of sustainability targets regarding purchased transport, and what practices companies are utilizing to decrease the emissions from purchased transport. The findings of this thesis show that TPCs play a large role in the process of affecting the environmental advancements in freight transport. Furthermore, by using the theoretical framework, fewer opportunities than barriers for affecting emissions from freight transport were identified. In two perspectives, the political and social, several opportunities were found. For instance, within the political perspective it was deduced that incentives such as the Swedish greenhouse gas reduction mandate act as opportunities for TPCs. Moreover, one of the most important barriers discovered in this thesis include the need for long-term policies by Sweden and the EU to enable investments in sustainable fuel types and vehicles.