Logistics is about to plunge into tender season. Freight forwarders are returning to offices reinvigorated from summer holidays, ready to win enough business to thrive for another year.

The big season for strategic sourcing lasts from Q4 to Q1. During which shippers invite carriers and forwarders to submit ‘tenders’ or quotes based on their shipment requirements. My experience at market intelligence company, Xeneta, gave me a front row seat to this matchmaking hurricane.

Traditionally, forwarders negotiate on price and duration. Spinning a Rubik’s Cube of trade lanes, carrier schedules, and volatile costs to find the best deal for shippers. However, a new variable has entered the mix — emissions.

Why are emissions estimates becoming a requirement in shipment RFPs?

Companies want to align shipping with their business goals. Traditionally, these goals included revenue growth and cost-cutting, but now sustainability has been added to the list.

Despite fluctuating macroeconomic conditions, the green trajectory prevails. Driven by the rise of regulation, growing investor pressure, and snowballing consumer demand, companies want to future-proof their business so they thrive in the inevitable low carbon economy. ESG makes business sense.

This shift starts with data. To meet net zero targets, you need to reduce emissions. To reduce emissions, you need high quality emissions data. This is why emissions requests in tenders are now commonplace — especially for enterprise clients.

To stay competitive, forwarders must now compete on cost, time, and emissions.

Freight forwarders winning tenders using emissions tracking

Logixboard gives freight forwarders the answers they need to manage supply chains. Their customers had started to see emission requirements appear more frequently in tenders. Failing to meet these requests meant losing revenue; fulfilling these requests meant growing revenue.

Failing to meet these requests meant losing revenue; fulfilling these requests meant growing revenue.

That’s why Logixboard embedded Lune’s emissions intelligence into its platform, to help its customers win tenders. Over 30 freight forwarders are now complying with emission requests using emissions tracking.

Get ready for green tender season

As Forwarders approach another tender season, they must be prepared for evolving shipper expectations. Before, time and cost influenced tenders. Now, time, cost, and emissions influence tenders.

However, adding emissions estimates to tenders is an arduous process. Typically it involves a lot of spreadsheet reformatting so columns and headers match the ones used in logistics carbon calculators.

At Lune, we’re committed to making the green decision as easy and accessible as possible. That’s why Lune’s AI-powered Tender Tool enables Forwarder sales teams to add emission estimates into tender spreadsheets, automatically. No more formatting — and reformatting — spreadsheets over and over again. What took hours, now takes minutes.

To futureproof freight forwarding this tender season, start adding emissions to tenders today.