C.H. Robinson at Climate Week NYC: Moving sustainable freight forward

Each September, Climate Week NYC brings more than 100,000 people together across 1,000-plus events throughout New York City. Business, government, and industry leaders from around the world gather to advance responses to climate challenges and examine what it will take to move promising ideas into practice.

During this year's Climate Week, C.H. Robinson leaders contributed to conversations on electric trucking, zero-emissions maritime freight, sustainability data, and the conditions needed to scale lower-emissions transportation. Across those discussions, the defining challenge was not a lack of promising technology or ambition. It was how to connect demand, infrastructure, investment, and day-to-day operations well enough for solutions to work beyond a pilot.

This is where supply chain perspective and expertise becomes essential. C.H. Robinson sits at the intersection of customers, carriers, and one of the world's largest logistics networks. With visibility across modes, routes, and markets, the company can help distinguish between a solution that is technically possible and one that is operationally repeatable, connecting sustainability goals to the decisions that determine how freight moves: cost, service, capacity, risk, and emissions.

Companies are applying a sharper business lens to sustainability efforts. The work is increasingly tied to efficiency, resilience, customer needs, and long-term value. That raises the bar for execution: the question is no longer simply which technology has potential, but where it can perform reliably and create value under real operating conditions.

Electric drayage provides a useful example. Shorter, repeatable routes that return to a home base can make drayage well suited for electrification. Yet vehicles are only one part of the operating model. Charging infrastructure, equipment availability, financing, utilization, port operations, and dependable customer demand must align before deployments can become repeatable at scale.

"Moving to lower-emissions freight solutions requires customer demand, but there are many other factors to consider," said Rachel Schwalbach, vice president of ESG at C.H. Robinson, who joined a Climate Week panel on the MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics' 2026 State of Supply Chain Sustainability Report. "Freight moves through a highly connected ecosystem, and progress depends on aligning the needs and realities of shippers, carriers, and logistics providers.

For carriers considering long-term investments, interest must become confidence that assets will be used consistently. Longer planning horizons, volume commitments, and procurement approaches that recognize lower-emissions capacity can help, but only when sustainability, procurement, and operations teams align on how those priorities will influence freight awards.

Collaboration can also reveal when a solution is not the right fit. There is no one-size-fits-all path to lower-emissions freight. Depending on the freight, infrastructure, and economics, the strongest opportunity may be electrification, alternative fuels, consolidation, improved utilization, or a mode shift.

C.H. Robinson brings broad expertise to these decisions, informed by approximately 37 million shipments and $23 billion in freight under management annually. That scale and visibility across modes, routes, and capacity options help the company evaluate tradeoffs and translate industry insight into practical choices for customers and carriers.

A shared fact base and early collaboration can help companies identify where sustainability can become an operating decision. Pilots can then evaluate not only whether a technology works, but whether demand, utilization, infrastructure, and economics support repeatable deployment.

Climate Week NYC provided a global forum to examine those connections and share practical lessons from across the freight ecosystem. C.H. Robinson will continue applying its scale, expertise, and technology to help customers and carriers evaluate lower-emissions options that reflect their business needs and real-world operating conditions.

Learn more about sustainability solutions at C.H. Robinson.