The EPA's SmartWay program is a voluntary partnership that helps shippers and carriers measure, benchmark, and reduce freight transportation emissions. For logistics teams under growing pressure to report Scope 3 emissions and demonstrate environmental progress, SmartWay provides a standardized framework for tracking CO₂, NOₓ, and particulate matter (PM) across your carrier network. It is not a certification in the traditional sense (there is no pass/fail audit), but rather a data-sharing partnership that gives shippers access to verified carrier emissions performance data.

If you have been asked by leadership, customers, or retail partners to quantify your transportation carbon footprint and you are unsure where to start, SmartWay is one of the most accessible entry points.

What Is the SmartWay Program?

SmartWay is a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) initiative launched in 2004. It creates a common framework for freight companies to measure fuel consumption and emissions across trucking, rail, air, and logistics operations.

Here is how it works in practice. Carriers that join SmartWay submit annual data on fleet performance, including fuel efficiency, miles traveled, and payload. The EPA uses this data to calculate standardized emissions metrics and assign each carrier a performance category (ranging from low to top performers). Shippers that join as SmartWay Partners agree to track the percentage of their freight moved by SmartWay carriers and report on their overall transportation footprint.

The result is a benchmarking system. Shippers can compare carriers not just on price and service, but on verified emissions data. That data feeds directly into sustainability reporting, whether you are filing CDP disclosures, responding to customer questionnaires, or building an internal ESG dashboard.

Why Does SmartWay Matter for Mid-Market Shippers?

Large enterprise shippers have had sustainability teams for years. But the pressure is moving downstream. If you are a mid-market shipper ($50M to $500M in revenue), you are likely encountering one or more of these situations:

Retail compliance requirements are expanding. Major retailers increasingly ask suppliers to document their environmental practices, including freight. Some include sustainability metrics in vendor scorecards alongside OTIF and fill rates. If you ship into Walmart, Target, Costco, or similar retailers, expect these questions to keep coming.

Customer RFPs now include sustainability sections. Even in B2B, procurement teams are adding environmental criteria. Having SmartWay partnership status and emissions data gives you something concrete to put in those fields instead of vague commitments.

Scope 3 reporting is becoming unavoidable. Transportation typically falls under Scope 3, Category 4 (upstream transportation and distribution) of greenhouse gas reporting frameworks. Scope 3 is the hardest category to measure because the emissions happen in someone else's operations (your carriers). SmartWay provides a structured way to collect and report that data without building a custom measurement system from scratch.

Cost and sustainability often point in the same direction. Carriers with better fuel efficiency tend to run newer, better-maintained equipment. They plan routes more effectively and often have lower deadhead miles. Choosing carriers based partly on SmartWay performance does not necessarily mean paying a premium. In many cases, fuel-efficient carriers are also cost-competitive carriers.

How Do You Become a SmartWay Shipper Partner?

Joining SmartWay as a shipper is straightforward, though it does require ongoing data management. The basic steps:

1. Register on the SmartWay website. You will need to designate a company contact who manages the partnership.
2. Collect carrier data. Identify which of your carriers are SmartWay participants. You will need to know the percentage of your total freight spend or miles that moves on SmartWay carrier networks.
3. Submit your annual tool. The EPA provides a shipper tool (an Excel-based data entry form) where you report your freight activity broken out by mode, carrier, and SmartWay status.
4. Receive your benchmarking results. The EPA returns performance benchmarks showing how your carrier mix compares to industry averages.

The biggest operational hurdle is Step 2: getting accurate data on which carriers in your network are SmartWay participants and how your freight volume distributes across them. If you are managing this in spreadsheets, it can take weeks of manual work each year. A transportation management system that tracks carrier attributes and freight volumes by lane makes this significantly easier.

What Emissions Does SmartWay Track?

SmartWay focuses on three key pollutants from freight transportation:

CO₂ (carbon dioxide) is the primary greenhouse gas from fuel combustion. It is the headline number in most sustainability reports and the one your leadership team and customers are most likely asking about.

NOₓ (nitrogen oxides) contribute to smog formation and respiratory health issues. NOₓ emissions vary significantly by engine age and technology, so carrier fleet age matters.

PM (particulate matter) is another air quality concern, particularly in communities near freight corridors, ports, and distribution centers. PM tracking is increasingly relevant as environmental justice considerations enter supply chain discussions.

SmartWay uses standardized grams-per-ton-mile or grams-per-mile metrics, which allows for apples-to-apples comparison across carriers regardless of fleet size.

How Does SmartWay Compare to Other Emissions Frameworks?

SmartWay is not the only emissions measurement framework, and it is worth understanding where it fits.

GLEC Framework (Global Logistics Emissions Council): The GLEC Framework, now formalized as ISO 14083, provides a methodology for calculating logistics emissions across all modes and geographies. It is more comprehensive than SmartWay and increasingly referenced in international reporting. Some TMS platforms, including Owlery, support both SmartWay data and ISO 14083-compliant GLEC calculations, which is useful if your supply chain extends beyond North American trucking.

CDP (Carbon Disclosure Project): CDP is a disclosure platform, not a measurement tool. SmartWay and GLEC data both feed into CDP reporting. Having your SmartWay data organized makes CDP filings significantly less painful.

Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi): If your company has committed to science-based targets, your Scope 3 transportation emissions need to be measured and reduced over time. SmartWay data provides a credible baseline and year-over-year tracking mechanism for the trucking portion of your footprint.

The practical takeaway: SmartWay is most useful for domestic U.S. trucking emissions. If your freight network includes international, ocean, air, or intermodal legs, you will likely need GLEC/ISO 14083 as a complementary framework.

What Are the Real Benefits of SmartWay Partnership?

It is worth being honest about what SmartWay does and does not do. It does not automatically reduce your emissions. It does not guarantee cost savings. It is a measurement and benchmarking tool.

That said, the practical benefits are real:

Carrier selection gets smarter. When you can see verified emissions performance alongside price and service metrics in your carrier scorecard, you can make more informed choices during procurement and routing guide construction. You might discover that your lowest-cost carrier on a given lane is also one of the dirtiest, or that a slightly higher-rate carrier delivers meaningfully better environmental performance.

Reporting becomes defensible. Instead of estimating emissions with generic industry averages, you have carrier-specific data verified by the EPA. That is a meaningful difference when your sustainability claims need to hold up to customer or investor scrutiny.

Year-over-year progress is trackable. SmartWay's annual reporting cycle gives you a built-in mechanism for showing improvement. Shifted 10% more volume to top-performing carriers this year? That shows up in your benchmarks.

It signals credibility. SmartWay partnership is recognized across the industry. It is a simple, low-cost way to demonstrate that your company takes environmental performance seriously, without requiring a massive investment in custom sustainability infrastructure.

How to Get More Value from SmartWay Data

Joining SmartWay is step one. Getting real value from it requires integrating emissions data into your day-to-day freight decision-making. Here is what that looks like in practice:

Build emissions into carrier scorecards. Most shippers evaluate carriers on cost, on-time performance, claims ratio, and tender acceptance. Adding an emissions performance column (using SmartWay category data) gives your procurement team a sustainability dimension without overhauling the process.

Factor emissions into routing guide decisions. When two carriers on a lane are comparable on price and service, SmartWay performance can be the tiebreaker. Over time, this incrementally shifts volume toward greener carriers.

Use emissions data in mode optimization. If you ship both FTL and LTL on certain lanes, emissions-per-ton-mile data can help you quantify the environmental impact of consolidation strategies, not just the cost impact.

Automate the data collection. The annual SmartWay reporting process is much easier when your TMS already tracks carrier SmartWay status and freight volumes by lane and mode. Owlery, for example, tracks emissions per load using both SmartWay and GLEC methodologies, which means your annual SmartWay submission can be generated from data you are already collecting rather than assembled manually.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Is SmartWay mandatory? No. SmartWay is a voluntary EPA program. However, some retailers and large customers prefer or require suppliers to be SmartWay partners. The program is free to join.

Does SmartWay certification reduce freight costs? SmartWay itself does not reduce costs directly. However, carriers with high SmartWay performance ratings tend to operate more fuel-efficient fleets, which can translate to competitive pricing. The bigger financial benefit is avoiding sustainability-related compliance costs or lost business from customers who require emissions reporting.

How long does it take to become a SmartWay partner? Registration is quick (a few days). The heavier lift is collecting your carrier and freight data for the initial submission, which can take several weeks depending on how organized your records are.

Can SmartWay data be used for Scope 3 reporting? Yes. SmartWay carrier performance data can feed directly into Scope 3, Category 4 calculations under the GHG Protocol. It provides a more accurate picture than using generic emissions factors.

Does SmartWay cover international shipping? SmartWay focuses primarily on U.S. and Canadian freight operations. For international ocean, air, and multimodal legs, the GLEC Framework (ISO 14083) is the more appropriate standard.