Convoy talks sustainability at The Future of Supply Chain

Convoy helped bring sustainability issues to the forefront at FreightWaves’ The Future of Supply Chain event last week in Rogers, Arkansas. 

“There was a great opportunity for firms to link up and see how they can work together, and I definitely heard a lot of conversations about how to go about that,” said Danny Gomez, director of financial and emerging markets at FreightWaves. 

Gomez said Convoy stood out in terms of the sustainability conversation as it’s central to the company’s mission.

“In my own conversations, people were excited about finding new ways to take their technology and make sustainability a bigger part of their business,” Gomez said. 

Dan Lewis, CEO and co-founder of Convoy, led a chat with George Brehovsky from CHEP regarding sustainability and driving greater sustainable outcomes through technology. 

“If you don’t have trust in relationships with customers, nobody’s going to let you try it and you can’t do it in a vacuum in the freight industry. I’ve come to the realization that you can’t actually be a tech innovator without having incredibly strong relationships,” Lewis said. 

“Dan discusses a sort of force multiplier, where shippers are still uniquely situated and central to what is a fragmented supply chain network. They can create priorities amongst their shipper communities, see what’s happening regarding sustainability and then be the ones to communicate and mandate best practices,” Gomez said.

Some in the industry are having conversations around efficiency and empty miles but not associating them with sustainability. But Gomez said it’s still a step in the right direction.

“At the end of the day, that’s what motivates a lot of people — how to make the business more efficient,” Gomez said.

Convoy had one of the biggest booths at The Future of Supply Chain, and Gomez believes that the bigger the presence, the bigger the mission. 

“They don’t talk about their company without talking about sustainability. It’s in everything that Dan and anyone there says. The company’s mission aligns from top to bottom, which is super important,” Gomez said.