Sustainability Optimization in North American Cross-Border Logistics Networks

Given that North American cross-border logistics account for 7.3% of global carbon emissions and enterprises are confronted with the practical dilemma of “high decarbonization costs,” coupled with the existing research focusing predominantly on single transportation modes and the failure to internalize carbon costs, this study embarks on a novel approach by internalizing carbon costs. It constructs a carbon footprint-sensitive multimodal transportation path algorithm. Leveraging 1.5 million freight waybills data from five core cross-border corridors in North America (two U.S.-Canada and three U.S.-Mexico) between 2021 and 2023, this study calculates the unit carbon emission coefficients for dry goods, cold chain, and hazardous materials under maritime, rail, and road transportation modes. A cost-carbon balanced optimization model is established with dual objectives of minimizing comprehensive costs and carbon emissions. The empirical case analysis of electronic components transportation across the U.S.-Mexico border at El Paso-Juarez reveals that the optimized path combining maritime and rail transportation, compared with the traditional road-dominated path, can achieve a 40.6% reduction in carbon emissions (monthly carbon emissions decreased from 1,280tCO₂ to 760tCO₂), with a net cost increase of only 3.2%. When the carbon price rises to USD 100 per ton of CO₂, the model automatically increases the proportion of rail transportation to 65%, achieving a decarbonization rate of 58%. The study confirms that internalizing carbon costs can effectively balance the economic efficiency and environmental decarbonization goals of North American cross-border logistics. The substitution of some road transportation by maritime and rail transportation is identified as the core path for regional logistics decarbonization. The large-scale promotion of this path across the top ten cross-border corridors in North America has an annual decarbonization potential of 1.42 million tons of CO₂.