Environmental Impact of Freight Transport – Freight Footprint as a New Freight Transport Indicator

Abstract

One of the most pressing questions today is how to prevent or slow down climate change. As a service sector, transport significantly contributes to this and increases greenhouse gas emissions. Furthermore, creating long-term sustainable social, economic and environmental processes by eliminating current systemic failures can also be a significant challenge for individual nations. One thing is sure: the status quo is not sustainable. Taking all these aspects into account, this paper seeks to answer the question of the extent to which the performance of freight transport in each EU Member State contributes to the change in the ecological footprint and how national characteristics influence this. The research introduces a newly established indicator, the freight transport footprint, which is based on a family of footprint formulas and specifically seeks to answer the extent to which freight transport burdens our environment.