The big question for a trucking fleet that wants to offer customers more sustainable shipping solutions is, “How can we do that in a way that’s still profitable?”

At A. Duie Pyle, it involved renewable diesel and reams of data to develop its new CleanJourney Renewable Diesel program. And it’s the data part of that where 2025 HDT Emerging Leader Sean Diehl comes in.

CleanJourney, according to Pyle, is a first-of-its-kind program that enables shippers to track and claim renewable diesel usage through an innovative book-and-claim model.

Why A. Duie Pyle Needed a New Approach to Renewable Diesel

Diehl joined A. Duie Pyle as a market research analyst a little over two years ago, with no prior experience in trucking, renewable fuels or sustainability.

What he did have was a degree in data processing and management information systems, some work experience in data science and market analytics, and an enthusiasm to tackle complex projects.

As the nomination explained, “He immersed himself in logistics sustainability frameworks and industry guidelines… and developed a practical, data-driven solution that aligned with both customer needs and industry expectations.”

“How we got into it was genuine market research and really listening to our customers and recognizing that there is a genuine uptick in sustainability-minded shippers and the fact that there is a market for that,” Diehl says.

“Obviously, in order for us to continue being in business in the long term, anything needs to be profitable.”

"But once it passes that filter, we start to look at what are the actual options that we can do to service customers.”

How CleanJourney’s Book-and-Claim Model Works

Renewable diesel provides significant environmental benefits, reducing greenhouse gas emissions by up to 65% compared to petroleum diesel. But it’s impossible to guarantee a customer that their particular load will be on a truck fueled with RD.

“In an LTL environment, it's not as simple as telling every shipper that 100% of your shipments can be moved 100 % of the time on trucks fueled with renewable diesel,” Diehl explains.

So A. Duie Pyle came up with a “book and claim” program that calculates the environmental impact of each shipment using carbon dioxide equivalents, then procures the equivalent amount of renewable diesel to offset those emissions.

Diehl explains the concept with this analogy: “When you are shopping for flights, it'll often have a button that says, ‘Would you like to pay an extra $5 to offset the carbon from this?’”

As RMI explains, “Book and claim is a flexible model for verified information to flow — or chain of custody model — that allows clean fuel or materials producers to ‘book’ the emissions savings of a good they’ve produced in one place, and customers to ‘claim’ the emissions benefit from these goods for climate disclosures in a different place.”

But to make that work in a complex less-than-truckload operation meant a lot of data crunching.

“I think the part that I'm most excited about is the degree of accuracy with which we are calculating the carbon emissions,” he says.

“A lot of online tools and a lot of the standards that currently exist are about as sophisticated as input your shipment, the shipment weight, and then input the origin zip code and the destination zip code. And then they're using a lot of assumptions and a lot of very heavy-handed math to get there.

“But because we have the telemetry data and because we know what else was on that truck on that day, we know what route the truck took, we know what the traffic was like on that day, and why and how long it took to get from point A to point B, from point B to point C, we can then use shipment-specific details along with the telemetry data to come up with what we believe is a much more accurate metric for that CO2 equivalent emissions factor.”

The Data, Departments, and Decisions Behind the Program

The CleanJourney initiative required close coordination among multiple internal teams, including operations, accounting, risk, sustainability leadership, data engineering and executive management.

As the nomination says, “Sean rose to the occasion, working cohesively across departments to ensure the program adhered to both technical and environmental standards. His keen ability to navigate cross-functional collaboration while maintaining focus on strategic outcomes ensured CleanJourney progressed seamlessly from concept to implementation.”

Asked if there is something he’s most proud of, Diehl says, “I'm really proud of the fact that we iterated through the process and came to a conclusion that we can be proud of.

“And I think that I'm proud of the fact that we had fun doing it. I'm proud of the fact that customers are interested in it. I'm proud of the fact that it's good for the environment as well. I think it checks a lot of boxes on doing fulfilling work."

Real Leadership Isn’t Always in the Spotlight

Asked what leadership means to him, Diehl responded that good leaders “recognize that it's not always glamorous, and it's not always being the person who's sitting at the head of the table. It's somebody who's willing to put in the work that others don't see and make the right decisions when others aren't looking in order to support an ongoing team effort.

“Sometimes you do need to be the person sitting at the head of the table. And sometimes you need to be the person that's outside of the room sweeping up or doing other things you might not get credit for, but it's important work and it needs to be done.”

Diehl’s work shows that the future of trucking and logistics isn’t about chasing buzzwords, or about one-size-fits-all solutions. It’s about using data and creativity to solve real problems. 

By taking on unfamiliar challenges and getting people from all corners of the business to work together, he’s helping build a more sustainable, smarter way to move freight.