A land and sea transport project only covers vehicles and vessels being used within Australia. International usage, such as export shipping, is not eligible under the method.
A project must involve implementing emissions reduction activities on at least one vehicle or group of vehicles. Depending on the type of project, eligible vehicles may include light vehicles, trucks, buses, trains, marine vessels or mobile equipment such as mining and agricultural vehicles. You may include only land vehicles, only marine vessels, or a combination of both. Air transport is excluded, because is covered under a separate aviation method.
The land and sea transport method allows you to choose the activities you wish to implement, provided they fall into at least one of the following categories:
- replacing vehicles
- modifying existing vehicles
- changing the energy source or the mix of energy sources used by vehicles
- improving operational practices in relation to vehicles.
Each activity you undertake must be reasonably expected to reduce vehicle emissions. Examples of the types of activities that could be undertaken in a land and sea transport project include:
- replacing existing vehicles with more efficient ones of a similar type (e.g. light trucks)
- increasing the use of biofuel
- installing low rolling resistance tyres
- optimising vehicle scheduling.
- The project activities must be specific to the chosen vehicles and aimed at reducing their emissions intensity. They cannot be activities that are aimed at reducing emissions from vehicles generally; for example, an activity cannot be designing a mobile phone app that allows users to run their vehicle or vehicles more efficiently.
Types of projects
Land and sea transport projects must be set up as one of the following two types:
- Group of Vehicles project or
- Aggregated Vehicles project.
Splitting the land and sea transport method in this way provides flexible options for different transport businesses. For example, a group of vehicles project is more likely to suit public or hire fleets and logistics companies that do not collect data at the level of individual vehicles. In contrast, an aggregated individual vehicles project would suit those operations with vehicle-specific data, such as railways, shipping and some trucking operations. Such operations may plan to include only a few trains or ships in their project.
Table 1 - Comparison of project types
Group of Vehicles project | Aggregated Individual Vehicles project |
|---|---|
Refer to Division 2 of the method | Refer to Division 3 of the method |
Includes light vehicles | Excludes light vehicles |
Excludes mobile equipment (e.g. mining and agricultural vehicles and other off –road self-propelled machinery) | Includes mobile equipment (e.g. mining and agricultural vehicles and other off –road self-propelled machinery) |
Can use the Australian Government’s Green Vehicle Guide to set the baseline emissions intensity for light vehicles in some situations OR Requires 3 years of specific data for groups or sub-groups of vehicles to calculate baseline emissions | Requires 3 years of specific data for individual vehicles to calculate baseline emissions |
Suitable project type for public or hire fleets where individual vehicles fuel data cannot be monitored | Cannot use the Australian Government’s Green Vehicle Guide |