Reduce Pollution From Goods Movement
Reduce Pollution From Goods Movement
Corporations like Amazon and Walmart continue to pollute near low-income communities, where the majority of residents are people of color.
On Land
Addressing the impacts of heavy duty truck and warehouse pollution on workers and communities is a key priority for Sierra Club’s transportation work across the country.
The rise of e-commerce and freight pollution from companies like Amazon and Walmart has a devastating impact on people living near warehouses and freight hubs – predominantly low-income and BIPOC communities. Sierra Magazine’s interactive article, Free Shipping Isn’t Free for Everyone, wove together visualizations, maps, and the personal stories of warehouse workers and activists in New Jersey, Texas, Illinois, and California. The piece highlights the harms from every delivery and how much the goods movement sector has grown over the years.
In 2023, Sierra Club collaborated with the Economic Roundtable, a nonprofit urban research organization, and the People’s Collective for Environmental Justice, an organization that champions clean air and environmental and racial justice based in the Inland Empire, on Exhausting Our Air: Environmental and Human Costs of Diesel Trucks. The report analyzed the public health, economic, labor, and environmental impacts of the warehousing transportation sector. The report outlines the benefits of zero-emission trucks to help build cleaner and greener jobs. It also includes personal profiles of six Inland Empire residents, who are living with, and fighting against, pollution from warehouses.
In 2021, Sierra Club fought alongside Southern California frontline community leaders to pass an Indirect Source Rule (ISR) in the South Coast Air Quality Management District. This rule pushes the region’s logistics and goods movements industries toward zero-emissions and clean energy by cutting pollution from trucks traveling to and from warehouses, electrifying warehouses, and creating local clean energy jobs – all resulting in billions of dollars in health benefits for communities.
The California Trucking Association filed a lawsuit challenging the rule, and the Sierra Club and our allies (represented by Earthjustice) intervened to help defend it. In December 2023, we achieved an important victory when a federal district court rejected industry’s claims and upheld the rule, concluding that the Air District had acted within its authority to reduce air pollution from warehouses in order to protect public health.
The map below shows some of the many other places beset by goods movement pollution that Sierra Club has identified as possible opportunities for future warehouse rule advocacy: the San Francisco Bay Area (where advocacy is already in progress), Denver area, Chicago area, NYC/Newark area, and Baltimore area.
At Sea
Corporate shippers and logistics owners operating at major ports like Los Angeles, Newark, and Savannah also have an opportunity to clean up business-as-usual with zero-emission technology. Over the years, the Clean Transportation for All campaign has influenced the San Pedro Bay Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, the largest port complex in the country, to implement zero-emission standards on their operations through their Clean Air Action Plan, Clean Truck Rate, and with an Indirect Source Rule, in progress. These standards provide air pollution relief for communities living nearby ports, grow green job opportunities, and provide local climate justice solutions.
At the federal level, funding from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act are helping ports decarbonize their operations. We've encouraged ports to apply for sustainable infrastructure and equipment that supports the high standards for cleaner air and good jobs. Currently, California has passed zero-emission rules for harbor craft and at berth plug-in requirements that help reduce port emissions. Ports across the country are ripe for real change to move away from dirty fossil fuels to clean electric zero-emission technology.