GreenPiece

Inspiration

In August 2022, climate-change infused heat-waves caused devastating flooding in Pakistan. 10-12% of the country was flooded and over 1700 people lost their lives. This inspired and moved us to take an impactful action to save the planet. Collectively, we want to play our part and make the change with all we have to offer, in the industry we operate for the world we live in.

What it does

Our project is an independent digital platform that offers customers sustainable booking offers, throughout all legs of a shipment journey. With API integrations, 1st/last mile and carriers share data on their emission calculations and tracking event statuses, this provides visibility on shipment's status and raises awareness to allow making conscious decision for sustainable bookings.

Customers can view the status of their shipments contribution to the greener planet through a dashboard that outlines their CO2 emissions, their 'Green' score and how far they are from reaching their monthly target. Customers can close the gap of their monthly targets by actively contributing to carbon-offset programs offered by the tool.

How we built it

We used the ONERecord data model to power our backend to demonstrate the functionality of our solution. We used Angular to run the UI component. We used local storage for data persistence. Using this methodology we were able to build a UI capable of showcasing the functional flow within our application including tracking to the piece level.

Challenges we ran into

Accurate calculation for carbon emission, considering all aspects (such as vehicle type, etc.), was a challenge. Not having enough time to collect all data during the hackathon prevented us from achieving this goal.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Team collaboration we had new members in our team and we all connected quickly, had alignment right from the get go. Everyone pitched in and brought their best ideas to the table. Despite being jet-lagged and coding for long hours, we were able to complete the solution and the submission video on time. As a team, we are proud of this accomplishment. Solution Idea We are proud of generating an idea that can truly make a significant impact on the environment. It will take time for cascade the change across the cargo community but we strongly believe we are heading the right direction and we are so proud of taking the first step in that direction.

What we learned

We learned that environmental change is not one person's role. We will need equivalent participation from all parties involved in the shipmen journey to commit to environmentally friendly shipping offers and to provide accurate information on their sustainability credentials. This is necessary to establish customer trust to promote environmentally sustainable shipments.

What's next for greenpiece

We will plan and spend ample time on accurately calculating carbon emissions for all segments of the shipment (1st mile, carrier, last mile). Some factors that contribute to accurate calculations are: vehicles types, vehicle size, carried weight, type of fuel(diesel/gasoline), elevation, etc. Further phases of development aim to include other means of shipping of freight, from sea to rail.