U.S. Environmental Protection Agency started a partnership couple of years ago (I think it was 2004) called SmartWay Transport Partnership. What they tended to do in this partnership was to to achieve fuel savings of up to 150 million barrels of fuel per year. Lot of companies and environmental organizations have come together to find practical ways to cut emissions and have greener operations.

Adrian Gonzalez of ARC Advisory Group wrote in one of his recent pieces that RedPrairie Corporation has been accepted recently as the first member of the SmartWay Transport Partnership. But this seems a little surprising to me: In the times that green operations is at the top of the agenda for companies like WalMart and HP, we should have had more companies present in executive forums and research groups.

This year in the annual conference of Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP), there is a track about environmental issues and I hope such events make supply chain technology companies more concerned and active in the area because emission reduction is not just about cutting the number of trucks and ships but it's also about developing a system for the transport division to optimize the fuel consumption in the short-term and long-term.