How to Start a Sustainable Trucking Company

Julie Starr • May 14, 2022



Today’s trucking industry is rapidly changing. The emergence of e-logs and other digital compliance solutions has made it possible for fleets to operate more efficiently . The increased adoption of telematics and connected vehicles improves fleet uptime and monitors driver performance to help reduce accidents. These changes also make drivers happier, safer, and more productive by eliminating unproductive waiting time, cutting downtime during maintenance, and proactively monitoring vehicle performance. This has led to an increased demand for companies that can provide services related to this type of truck—known as sustainable trucking companies.

Do your research into sustainability in trucking .

Before deciding to start a sustainable trucking company, make sure you have researched the viability of this type of business. And if you are thinking of investing in an existing sustainable trucking company, you should conduct due diligence to determine its financial viability. As mentioned above, the demand for clean diesel trucks has grown significantly. This has created a new market for sustainable trucking companies to take advantage of this demand. However, there are a few things you should keep in mind before entering this market. Sustainability currently plays a significant role in trucking. But since it is a relatively new concept for many truckers, you need to do your part to educate the industry on how to be sustainable and why it is essential. 

Align with sustainability allies and partners

Reaching out to various allies and partners can help you get your sustainable trucking company up and running quickly and efficiently. Some of the most important partners to consider are policymakers, regulators, logistics providers, and customers. Working with policymakers and legislators can help ensure that your business complies with the latest regulations and that your customers can remain compliant. 

Logistics providers such as truck manufacturers, fleet owners, fleet management companies, and suppliers can provide you with essential equipment and services to help you get your business off the ground. These include everything from vehicles to maintenance and telematics services, helping you get your business off the ground and running efficiently. 

Ensure drivers are on board with your sustainability efforts

Before you hire any drivers looking for careers in truck driving , you should ensure they are on board with your sustainability efforts. Drivers can be excellent advocates for your sustainability efforts by sharing their knowledge with your customers. Likewise, they can also help you improve your sustainability efforts by providing feedback and recommendations on how you can do better. 

Use eco-friendly fuel sources .

In addition to using clean diesel trucks, sustainable trucking companies also work to reduce pollution and achieve greater fuel efficiency. One of the most effective ways to do this is by using bio-based or renewable fuels in vehicles. While diesel engines have been proven to run on blends of bio-based and renewable energies, trucks that operate on natural gas reduce emissions by up to 99% .

Use technology to improve route planning and logistics .

A vital part of any sustainable trucking company is the planning and logistics behind each trip. These include the route, fuel efficiency, and more. Some key technologies that can help improve these efforts include the following: 

  • Satellite-based navigation systems 
  • Real-time traffic information 
  • ELD technology
  • IoT devices 
  • Real-time fuel prices
  • Digital maintenance logs 

These technologies can help you plan the best route, avoid traffic jams, minimize idling time, track maintenance, reduce fuel usage, etc. They can also help you plan your trips using various sustainability factors, such as fuel prices and the weather. The IoT devices and real-time data that these technologies provide can also allow you to provide better service to your customers. This includes tracking the location of shipments, managing inventory, and ensuring drivers are meeting delivery timeframes.

How Student-Led ‘Energy Audits’ Are Cutting School Costs (and Lighting the Way Forward)

By Julie Starr • July 14, 2025
What happens when students stop waiting for adults to fix things and start conducting their own energy audits? Money gets saved. The lights get switched off. Data gets analyzed. And a quiet revolution in sustainability begins—inside schools that once overlooked their own inefficiencies. Across the globe, student-led energy audits are proving that change doesn't always need to come from a policy shift or a major capital budget. Sometimes, it begins with a clipboard, a spreadsheet, and a group of curious minds asking: Why are the hallway lights on at noon when sunlight floods the building? The Energy Detectives These audits aren’t science fair projects. They’re rigorous investigations, often done in collaboration with facilities staff, local environmental nonprofits, or even engineering mentors. Students go from classroom to classroom measuring electricity usage, checking for phantom loads , and identifying where heat is escaping in winter or air conditioning is leaking in summer. One high school in Ontario saved over $12,000 a year after its Grade 11 physics students ran an energy audit and suggested simple changes—LED upgrades, motion sensors in bathrooms, and smarter heating schedules. They didn’t just propose ideas. They pitched them with spreadsheets, thermal images, and payback timelines. It worked. Learning That Pays Off—Literally Unlike textbook learning, these audits blend real-world math, environmental science, economics, and persuasive communication. Students aren’t just learning about sustainability. They’re doing it. And the savings add up. From dimming overlit hallways to reprogramming HVAC systems that run all weekend for empty buildings, students are surfacing blind spots that administrators often overlook. In some districts, their findings are influencing energy policy. Elsewhere, the audits have inspired school boards to hire sustainability coordinators—often alumni of the student programs themselves. There’s something poetic about a school funding new books or laptops from money saved by students who found out the vending machines didn’t need to be plugged in 24/7. Why This Matters More Than Ever With education budgets tightening and utility costs rising, every dollar saved is a dollar that can go back into classrooms. And here’s where it gets interesting from a family finance perspective, too. If you’re a parent setting aside money for post-secondary savings, every bit of school efficiency helps. Fewer energy costs might mean more programming, better STEM facilities, or even bursaries. That raises a broader point: when families save for their children’s future, they often look into RESPs (Registered Education Savings Plans). And many wonder—is a RESP deduction available on my taxes? While contributions themselves aren’t deductible, the gains grow tax-free, and students often pay little to no tax when they withdraw the funds during school. A Movement Worth Replicating These audits aren’t just an exercise in environmentalism. They’re leadership labs. Students learn how to spot inefficiencies, speak up in board meetings, and make a business case for change. They don’t just flip switches—they shift mindsets. And they carry these habits into adulthood. The result? A generation growing up not only with climate anxiety, but also with tools to tackle it.

Smart Sensors, Smarter Supply Chains: Enhancing Traceability in Food & Beverage

By Julie Starr • June 20, 2025
In today’s competitive food and beverage (F&B) landscape, traceability is no longer a compliance checkbox—it’s a differentiator. The ability to track every step of a product’s journey, from origin to shelf, is vital for regulatory accuracy and to ensure brand integrity, supply chain agility, and consumer trust. Add smart sensors to the mix: the quiet, tireless observers revolutionizing supply chain intelligence. Traceability Has a Data Problem Despite digitization across many F&B operations, most traceability systems still rely on fragmented or manual data inputs. Batch numbers, barcodes, and handwritten logs often stand between a supplier and clarity when things go wrong. This approach struggles with latency and scale. When contamination or delays occur, root cause analysis is slow, costly, and damaging. Smart sensors shift this paradigm by embedding real-time, contextual intelligence into every stage of the supply chain . Whether monitoring humidity in transit or recording fill-level precision in bottling plants, they remove the guesswork by turning physical conditions into structured, time-stamped data. From Passive Monitoring to Active Optimization Sensors used to be reactive tools, alerting operators to anomalies. But smart sensors now play a proactive role in process control. They measure, and they interpret. For example, temperature sensors embedded in cold chain logistics can dynamically adjust cooling systems or flag threshold breaches before spoilage occurs. These advancements reduce waste and loss at a systemic level. In a production facility, smart sensors integrated with PLCs can enforce recipe compliance, verify clean-in-place processes, and detect micro-stoppages in real-time. This enables operations to pivot faster and isolate inefficiencies before they cascade downstream. Trust is Built on Transparency Consumers are paying more attention to what they eat and drink. They’re looking beyond labels, expecting visibility into how ingredients are sourced, processed, and handled. Smart sensors make this level of transparency achievable —without burdening manufacturers with excessive manual oversight. By capturing metadata throughout production and distribution, these sensors create a digital footprint that’s tamper-resistant and instantly accessible. When this data is integrated with a central platform, brands can respond confidently to audits, recalls, and quality assurance challenges with a level of precision that would be impossible through legacy systems. Intelligence Without Infrastructure Overhaul One common misconception is that adding smart sensors requires a top-down reinvention of supply chain infrastructure. In reality, companies can deploy edge sensors in a modular, scalable way. Many modern solutions offer plug-and-play functionality, allowing for fast integration with existing machinery and MES systems. This is where suppliers like alps-machine.com are reshaping expectations. Rather than pushing proprietary ecosystems, they design sensor-ready equipment with interoperability in mind. This future-proofs investment and keeps businesses nimble in the face of regulatory or market shifts. Designing for Data Longevity Sensors are only as powerful as the context they capture. A smart implementation ensures the data collected can be standardized, stored securely, and accessed meaningfully across departments. This means moving beyond local dashboards toward centralized, queryable datasets that inform everything from supplier contracts to marketing claims. As AI and predictive analytics become more accessible, these data-rich environments will unlock new capabilities—such as predicting demand spikes based on real-time freshness indicators or adjusting production schedules dynamically based on in-transit sensor feedback. Final Thoughts: Smarter Isn’t Optional Traceability isn’t solved by more paperwork—it’s solved by embedded intelligence. Smart sensors don’t just help businesses know what happened; they help prevent the wrong things from happening at all. For companies in the food and beverage sector, adopting smart sensors is less about chasing innovation and more about enabling resilience, speed, and confidence in every decision.