Beyond the last mile:
the routes to zero

Three electrified routes show that decarbonising logistics is no longer a future commitment at Hager – it is already on the road.

Somewhere on the motorway between Hammersbach and Fega Schmitt in Heilsbronn, both in Germany, a shift is underway. A logistics coordinator checks the load one last time – Hager products secured, manifest confirmed – before climbing into the cab. The truck pulls away with hardly a sound. No exhaust, no diesel. Just the low hum of an electric motor and a delivery arriving with a measurably smaller carbon footprint. This is Hager’s Blue Planet Commitment and Project 2030 in motion.

The pressure behind the transition

Under CSRD, the carbon footprint of a delivery is no longer internal. Scope 3 emissions, including how products reach customers, now appear in sustainability reports, shape procurement decisions, and determine which suppliers stay on the shortlist. For manufacturers like Hager, finished goods transport represents a material share of those downstream emissions.

Heavy-duty electrification offered a structural answer. But reliable, high-capacity charging for long-haul freight barely existed. For most operators, that gap made electric freight commercially unviable – not a question of will, but of infrastructure.

The infrastructure decision

Hager’s response was to remove that barrier directly. Dedicated high-power charging at the Vendenheim and Hammersbach hubs now serves the routes connecting Obernai and Vendenheim in France with Blieskastel and Hammersbach in Germany – creating the certainty electric freight requires, and giving logistics partners a reliable foundation without dependency on public networks that weren’t there yet.

“The infrastructure investment at Vendenheim was the decision that made everything else possible,” says Camille Loisy, Program Manager for Blue Planet Commitment, Supply Chain & Logistics. “Without charging certainty, you cannot commit to electric freight on strategically important routes. With it, you build from a stable foundation and extend it outward.”

Internal routes came first, proving the model before the network opened to customers – a deliberate sequence that makes the scale-up credible.

Value at the customer’s door

In January 2026, the first customer route went live. But the Hammersbach–Fega Schmitt connection did not emerge from Hager’s ambitions alone. It grew out of a shared conversation: Fega Schmitt faced the same sustainability pressures and had the same drive to decarbonise their supply chain. That alignment turned a logistical decision into something more – the moment electrified logistics crossed from internal operation to external value proposition. “That changes the conversation we have with customers about their own emissions,” says Camille Loisy, “the carbon intensity of our logistics is now part of the value we bring.”

Electrifying a delivery route directly reduces the Scope 3 burden on the customer’s ledger – tangible, reportable, and decisive in ESG-driven procurement. Suppliers who demonstrate low-emission delivery signal net-zero alignment, strengthen their position in tenders, and become partners in their customers’ transition, not just vendors in their supply chain.

The business case

But the logic extends beyond emissions. Current crises underline the urgent risks of diesel volatility and expanding carbon pricing. “Electrified routes reduce our exposure to diesel price swings and future carbon costs. That is not a one-time saving but structural cost stability,” says Camille Loisy, “because the infrastructure we have built is already in place.”

That infrastructure is itself a strategic asset as it enables scalable fleet electrification and grows more valuable with every route added. The numbers reflect this: 40%³ cost savings against diesel, 80%⁴ fewer emissions, payback in four to six years, lifetime advantage beyond a decade.

From exception to standard

Today, three routes are electrified. “Every route we add puts the infrastructure we have built to better use and strengthens the business case further,” says Camille Loisy. “We are already operating at scale and expanding from there.”

No longer a pilot programme, this is a logistics model in which decarbonised freight is becoming the operational default, a commercial standard rather than a climate exception.

Back on the motorway, the truck reaches its destination. The load is signed off. And somewhere in Fega Schmitt’s procurement system, a Scope 3 figure moves in the right direction. The quiet arrival, it turns out, carries quite a lot of weight.