Edson Guimarães (LOTS CEO) says freight transport using biofuels is already competitive.
São Paulo, Sep 4 (EFEverde).- LOTS Group's CEO for Latin America, Edson Guimarães, said Thursday in São Paulo that transporting goods with biofuels is now as cheap as with diesel, although he warned about the problem of inefficiency in Brazilian logistics.
"It's now possible to have green logistics at costs similar to those of diesel," said the executive of this transport company during the Third Latin American Green Economy Forum (FLEV), organized by the EFE Agency.
Guimarães also stressed that “cost parity” with diesel is “crucial” to accelerating demand for biofuels in the logistics sector, which annually moves 400 billion reais (about 73 billion dollars or 62 billion euros) in Brazil.
Key step towards decarbonizationThe businessman emphasized that this is a significant step toward the country's decarbonization, given that Brazil is the sixth-largest global emitter of polluting gases in the transportation sector.
Despite the lower cost of biofuels such as ethanol and biomethane, Guimarães warned that one of the main obstacles to promoting the energy transition is "operational inefficiency."
In this regard, he explained that the economic viability of green logistics depends not only on choosing the right fuel, but also on maximizing transportation operations.
Operational optimization and efficiencyGuimarães cited as an example transportation companies that keep trucks idle for eight or nine hours when they could be moving.
"In addition to choosing the ideal fuel for each type of operation, we believe that the economic viability of green logistics is directly related to our ability to optimize operations," he noted.
Therefore, he argued that beyond the public policies promoted by the government, it should be the private sector that leads the process and resolves the structural problems of efficiency.
Institutional and business support in the FLEVThe Third Latin American Green Economy Forum is sponsored by ApexBrasil, Brazil's export and investment promotion agency; Norte Energia, the concessionaire of the Belo Monte hydroelectric plant; and LOTS Group, a company promoting solutions for decarbonizing the logistics sector.
The meeting also includes the collaboration of Imaflora, the Climate Observatory, and IBMEC University, in whose auditorium the event is taking place.
Finally, the organizers stressed that the combination of private innovation, public policies and investment in efficiency will be decisive for Brazil to meet its transportation decarbonization goals.
jmc/cms/jrg
You may also be interested in:
The waste challenge in Latin America: weak laws, logistics, and the COVID effect
efeverde
