Ewals Cargo Care & BDO: Driving sustainability with KPI assurance

Transporting goods, driving impact

Enhance your ESG reporting today

Ewals Cargo Care is a European logistics service provider that combines decades of experience with a strong focus on the future. Their ESG strategy is built around the well-known Environment, Social, and Governance (ESG) pillars. By addressing these dimensions in balance, Ewals Cargo Care ensures that its operations create long-term value for clients, employees, suppliers and society at large. 

To explore how this commitment translates into practice, we spoke with Jan Huys, Emission & Energy Expert, and Renzo van Oost, Group Financial Controller. Their experience highlights that sustainability is not the responsibility of one team alone but requires joint ownership across multiple departments. 

Sustainability reporting requires input from many sides – operations, finance, emission & energy, compliance. It’s only by working together that we can create a credible picture.

Renzo van OostGroup Financial Controller at Ewals Cargo Care

Multimodal transport and biofuels as key levers 

The most important environmental impact of a logistics company lies in its CO₂ emissions. Ewals Cargo Care addresses this challenge through a multimodal transport approach: combining road, rail, and short sea shipping to move goods in the most efficient and sustainable way. This flexibility allows Ewals Cargo Care to reduce emissions while still guaranteeing reliable delivery. 

Our multimodal network is central to our environmental strategy. It reduces congestion, lowers CO₂, and helps clients achieve their own sustainability targets without compromising on performance.

Jan HuysEmission & Energy Expert at Ewals Cargo Care

In addition to this network, clients can also opt for the use of alternative fuels. One example is Hydrotreated Vegetable Oil (HVO), a sustainable substitute for diesel that can significantly reduce emissions on routes where electrification or modal shift are not yet feasible.  

The Benefit of HVO is that it can be fuelled in a normal diesel truck. No technical adjustments and investments needed.

Building trust through HVO assurance 

Switching to HVO was a meaningful step. When some clients asked for transparent, externally validated reporting on the usage of HVO, Ewals Cargo Care turned to an independent expert. That’s where BDO came in. 

BDO provided limited assurance on two key elements: the number of HVO litres used during the year and the related CO₂ emissions saved. For the emissions calculation, Ewals Cargo Care followed the GLEC Framework, the global standard for freight transport emissions. By assuring both the input data and the resulting savings, BDO strengthened the accuracy and transparency of the reporting of Ewals Cargo Care. 

“Assurance gives us confidence that we’re doing things the right way,” Renzo notes. “It reassures our teams that the calculations are correct, and it allows us to quantify our sustainability efforts in a way that clients can trust.”

The outcome not only answered client demands for reliable, third-party validated information but also gave Ewals Cargo Care confidence that their sustainability progress is being measured and communicated correctly.

KPI assurance: why it matters for businesses 

At BDO, we see more companies turning to KPI assurance to make their sustainability reporting more credible and impactful. KPI assurance allows companies to focus on selected, material topics – such as CO₂ emissions, energy use, or diversity targets. 

Limited assurance is less burdensome than reasonable assurance, yet it still provides significant value: 

  • Improving client relationships: reliable KPIs strengthen trust with customers and business partners.
  • Enhancing external ratings: assurance can contribute to better ESG scores, such as EcoVadis.
  • Boosting internal confidence: management and teams know they are tracking progress in the right way.

In short, KPI assurance helps businesses like Ewals Cargo Care show measurable progress, meet stakeholder expectations, and stay ahead in the market. 

Ready to get to work with ESG reporting via the VSME standard?

Check out our webpage (ESG Transparency & Reporting) or contact our ESG experts for pragmatic, personal advice.