Global Consumer Goods Leader Partners with CleanMile to Cut Emissions by 20%

In 2024, a leading global consumer goods company was looking for a solution to accurately reimburse carriers for fuel costs, instead of relying on generalized national averages. They partnered with Breakthrough to implement Fuel Recovery, a market-based fuel reimbursement solution, that provided them transparency to fuel and freight costs and improved cost efficiency across their transportation network.

During the onboarding process, Breakthrough cleaned, organized, and optimized the company’s transportation data. With their transportation data fully optimized, the global consumer goods company began exploring new possibilities to leverage this robust foundation. Recognizing sustainability as a priority, the company adopted Breakthrough’s CleanMile solution to calculate a precise transportation emissions baseline from their clean dataset and pinpoint areas of inefficiency to reduce emissions.

The recommendations delivered through CleanMile enable the global consumer goods company to reduce scope 3 transportation emissions by up to 20%, covering both upstream and downstream emissions.

Tackling transportation emissions with precision and partnership

The global consumer goods company worked closely with Breakthrough to analyze their data and provide a precise calculation of their 2015 and 2023 absolute emissions baseline and emissions intensity. From this data, Breakthrough provided a range of tailored strategies to help the global consumer goods company meet its sustainability goals while maintaining operational efficiency. Key recommendations included intermodal conversion, optimizing carrier selection, and load consolidation. The plan also included available alternative energies in their network such as biodiesel, compressed natural gas (CNG), renewable natural gas (RNG), renewable diesel, and electric to reduce emissions while maintaining cost efficiency.

Breakthrough broke down their roadmap in detail:

• 2.3-5.3% through improving SmartWay ranks

• 3.9% through intermodal conversion

• 8.8% through load consolidation

• 0.4-2.4% through biodiesel

• 1% through CNG

• 15.6-35.3% through RNG, depending on the feedstock

• 2.2-3.6% through renewable diesel

• 0.1% through electric

With this partnership, the global consumer goods company’s transportation team gained a clear understanding of the potential impact of each strategy and established an actionable roadmap for the company to achieve a 14% reduction in transportation emissions in 2025, reinforcing their dedication to sustainable progress.

Leveraging RNG to accelerate decarbonization

RNG emerged as a particularly impactful solution for the global consumer goods shipper. It not only presented a significant opportunity to reduce emissions but also offered more stable pricing and cost parity with diesel and increased freight capacity. To support adoption, Breakthrough conducted a detailed analysis of their network. This included assessing lanes and fueling station options. Breakthrough also assisted with bidding processes and worked closely with energy providers to understand equipment requirements. By serving as an intermediary between the global consumer goods shipper and RNG providers, the shipper was able to make the change to make progress toward their emissions reduction target. The RNG carrier commended Breakthrough’s ability to identify opportunities and enable collaboration, while the efforts of the shipper ensured a smooth transition to sustainable practices.

The global consumer goods company’s move to an RNG fleet is projected to reduce emissions by 40% and lower total ownership costs by 14.8% over five years, representing a 0.3% drop in emissions across the company’s transportation network.

Setting the standard for sustainable transportation

The global consumer goods company’s partnership with Breakthrough demonstrates how load-level emissions data can uncover opportunities for greater operational resilience and enhance scalability. Their engagement with Breakthrough went beyond tailored recommendations, as they were able to execute the initiatives and achieve measurable emissions reduction. Together, their efforts not only achieved impactful sustainable and operational outcomes but also set a benchmark for reducing emissions within the transportation sector.