First export containers in Belgium shipped using inland waterway transport
for a sustainable agriculture
Royal Agrifirm Group has taken an important next step towards sustainable transport in Belgium. The new export plant for concentrates in Grobbendonk from now on will be transporting a large part of its export in containers by barge to the port of Antwerp via the nearby DLCT Terminal. The multimodal solution for the 2500 20ft export containers was developed in cooperation with terminal operator Van Moer Logistics and the Multimodaal.Vlaanderen consulting firm of the Flanders Institute for Logistics (VIL).
Willy De Decker, Expert at Multimodaal.Vlaanderen, developed the multimodal alternative: “If these containers were to be picked up empty in Antwerp, loaded there and returned again via the E313 motorway and the Antwerp Ring Road, this would result in 275,000 kilometres by road.” This solution combines two advantages: on the one hand the short distance from the production site to the inland waterway terminal (1 kilometre) and on the other hand loading the containers in advance so they can be transported to and returned from the terminal very efficiently by truck.
Major social impactToday, only 6,500 kilometres are still driven by road, resulting in an overall savings of 268,500 kilometres (-97.6%). This is over and above a large part of the raw materials (soy and rapeseed meal) that are being supplied by inland waterway transport for some time now. “Where there is a will there is a waterway,” says Chris Mercier, Operation Director Agrifirm EMEA. “Combined with the road kilometres saved, our social impact is highly relevant. By making use of inland waterway transport, we are reducing our CO2 emissions by as much as 66%, which is a strong argument for Agrifirm in favour of this approach. In addition to the standard KPIs, we also monitor the ecological impact of our transport movements, the number of transport movements by road and their ‘root cause’. We always offer our customers intermodal transport as the standard option.”
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