When you're talking about trucking, environmental sustainability is often equated with truck fuel economy, alternative fuels, and zero-emission powertrains. 

Heavy Duty Trucking’s Top Green Fleets for 2025 show that there’s more to environmental sustainability beyond the rolling assets. 

From green buildings and renewable energy to smarter maintenance and low-emission equipment, these forward-thinking fleets are proving that reducing emissions doesn’t stop at the tailpipe.

Here are four ways they’re leading by example:

1. Greening Buildings and Trucking Facilities

Warehouses, maintenance shops, offices, and other facilities offer trucking companies several opportunities to improve their sustainability.

For instance, one of Schneider’s sustainability goals is to achieve net zero status in all company-owned facilities by 2035. 

In 2023, the company achieved a 9.7% reduction in emissions at owned facilities. To help identify additional improvement opportunities, it completed energy audits of all its owned facilities.

Pitt Ohio operates six LEED-certified facilities across four terminal locations. 

LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) is the most widely used green building rating system in the world. According to the U.S. Green Building Council, LEED provides a framework for healthy, efficient, and cost-saving green buildings. 

These buildings are designed, built, and operated considering energy use, water use, indoor environmental quality, material selection, and site and location within the surrounding community. 

Pitt Ohio's LEED facilities include features such as sustainable energy, geothermal heating and cooling, radiant floor heating in the shop, natural light panels, energy-efficient HVAC, water conservation, low-flow plumbing fixtures, recycling, LED lighting, and so on. 

Landscaping with native, drought-resistance plants saves water. Buildings may be situated to take advantage of maximum daylight capacities, meaning less energy needed for lighting.

Improving your facilities' environmental footprint can also be small things. 

At D.B. Schenker’s U.S. land operations (USA Truck), facilities have low-energy LED lighting and carefully managed shop interior thermostat settings. 

At FTC Transportation, the company that handles its shredding/paper recycling does not take cardboard. So a staff member loads up all boxes and cardboard as needed and takes them to a local recycling location.

2. Harnessing the Power of Renewable Energy

Solar and wind installations help reduce dependency on traditional grid energy:

Three of Pitt Ohio’s facilities produce renewable energy, and in the summer months, the surplus electricity is sold back to the power grid. 

Two are home to a new patented microgrid design that stores and uses renewable energy for facility operations. The design uses both wind and solar to power direct current (DC) applications, avoiding energy loss from alternating current (AC) conversions.

Pitt Ohio is also evaluating a solar technology that, if feasible, will be widely rolled out to many of its terminal locations.

Other examples:

• Nussbaum Transportation partnered with Halo Solar to install a 160kW solar array on the roof of its new maintenance facility. According to the company, 30-year projections include $1.2 million in utility savings and electricity to offset 4,700 metric tons of CO2.

• NFI has solar installations in New Jersey and California and is expanding solar and adding battery storage this year in the Golden State.

• A. Duie Pyle operates a 570,000-square-foot solar-powered warehouse and has launched waste reduction programs to minimize environmental impact. 

• TCI Transportation is adding another 400kWh of solar power, increasing its renewable energy capacity and reducing reliance on traditional energy sources.

3. Rethinking Sustainable Maintenance Shops

Green thinking also extends on to the shop floor.

The maintenance shop at Pitt Ohio’s Cincinnati, Ohio, terminal was the company’s first LEED-certified building. It is projected to save 20.75% on energy costs. A water management plan focused on proper drainage and a drain filtering system for water runoff. The company also increased ventilation and insulation values for thermal efficiency. 

Schenker is using smart chargers for battery recharging stations. It eliminated purchasing fossil-fuel-burning boost-off equipment and has moved instead to capacitor jump start equipment. 

At Missouri-based Artur Express, the company reduces waste through recycling and reuse programs; using sustainable materials in operations and maintenance; and minimizing water usage in cleaning and maintenance processes.

FTC Transportation’s maintenance department recycles oil, scrap metal, florescent light bulbs, and tires to reduce the company's environmental impact. 

4. Addressing Yard and Warehouse Sustainability

A number of the Top Green Fleets have been replacing yard spotters and forklifts with cleaner versions.

Pitt Ohio notes that electrification of off-road equipment, in particular forklifts, has been an effective way to reduce fuel costs and carbon emissions; 40% of its forklifts are electric. 

It recently added its first Class 8 electric yard jockey to its Indianapolis terminal. After only four months, the company has already seen cost savings and emissions reductions.

Schneider has replaced diesel yard spotters with electric in multiple states. The new vehicles run for a full 24-hour period before needing to be recharged, and each saves an estimated 35,000 pounds of CO2 each year. 

Knight-Swift Transportation operates electric forklifts in key California less-than-truckload locations.

Nussbaum Transportation, whose longer lengths of haul and Midwest location make many electrification and alt-fuel operations for trucks unfeasible, has two propane-powered forklifts and four battery-electric scissor lifts.

TCI Transportation has approximately 50 EV yard tractors. 

Through January 2024, NFI had deployed 17 battery-electric yard tractors in Southern California and Texas.

Ruan operates some 700 electric forklifts throughout the country and is working this year to grow its number of ZEV yard tractors from 20% to 30% of its current diesel yard tractor fleet.

Green From the Ground Up

While trucks remain central to the industry’s sustainability efforts, HDT’s Top Green Fleets demonstrate that significant environmental gains can also come from the yards, shops, warehouses, and offices that also are integral to keeping the freight moving. 

By investing in renewable energy, smart infrastructure, and efficient facility operations, these fleets are driving sustainability from the ground up.