Simulation-Based CO2e Footprint Analysis of Electric Trucks in the Animal Feed Distribution

Animal feed supply networks heavily rely on just-in-time deliveries between raw material producers, retailers, manufacturers, and customers. Accordingly, transportation contributes largely to this industry’s CO2e footprint. This article extends an existing simulation model with capabilities to track the CO2e footprint of individual products across the supply network. It further integrates the capability to simulate the use of electric transport vehicles. This article presents a simulation study to investigate using electric trucks instead of diesel trucks in terms of CO2e and kilometers traveled. The results show that the animal feed distribution is particularly suitable for electric vehicles due to the comparably localized area covered by these supply networks and can achieve reductions of up to 70% CO2e for a well-utilized fleet.