Carbon Reduction Assessment for DHL Air Cargo

Abstract

Against the background of the global aviation industry's commitment to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050, there is a real problem for air cargo enterprises to turn grand goals into concrete actions. How to reasonably allocate different emission reduction paths such as sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), fleet renewal and operation optimization with limited resources is a key issue faced by enterprises in the process of low-carbon transformation. Taking DHL air cargo business as an example, this paper establishes a comprehensive evaluation system of carbon emission reduction strategy including four aspects : environmental performance, economic cost, technical conditions and operational impact. The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method are used to quantify and prioritize its three main emission reduction strategies, namely, SAF application, fleet modernization update and operational efficiency improvement.

It can be seen from the results that the maximum weight of environmental performance at the standard level is 0.3423, followed by economic costs and technical conditions, and the smallest operational impact is 0.0910; at the indicator layer, the impact of carbon emission reduction potential and initial investment cost has the greatest impact on strategic value, accounting for 0.1535 and 0. 1360. The comprehensive scores of the three strategies from high to low are 85.73 points for SAF application, 83.89 points for fleet modernization update, and 82.05 points for operational efficiency improvement. SAF has outstanding performance in environmental performance and technical conditions, but there is cost pressure; the fleet modernization update has advantages in terms of technical maturity and compatibility, but the initial investment is large ; the improvement of operational efficiency has the highest score in the operational impact dimension, but the emission reduction potential is small.

According to the evaluation results, this paper puts forward three different strategies, that is, the improvement of operational efficiency is the short-term basic strategy, the modernization of the fleet is the medium-term strategic focus, and the application of SAF is the long-term strategic focus implemented in stages. The evaluation system and method established in this paper can not only provide quantitative decision support for DHL to improve its carbon emission reduction roadmap, but also provide reference analysis ideas and empirical reference for the aviation logistics industry to formulate scientific emission reduction strategies under complex and uncertain environment.