How Essar is silently building a green trucking empire

Earlier this month, GreenLine Mobility announced that it had signed a contract to deploy its liquified natural gas (LNG)-powered trucks to service the logistics of mining company Hindustan Zinc. A sustainable freight solutions provider, GreenLine said it would invest Rs 200 crore for the deployment, with the trucks being used for Hindustan Zinc’s supply chain and transportation operations.

This isn’t the first such deal GreenLine has struck. The two-year-old company, which began life as an LNG and compressed natural gas (CNG) transporter, has struck a number of such deals with companies in similarly carbon-intensive sectors over the past year. Its clients include cement majors UltraTech Cement and JK Lakshmi Cement, as well as FMCG giant Nestle India, among many others.

The appeal of GreenLine’s LNG-powered offerings is easy enough to understand. Road transport accounted for 12% of India’s CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion. And while heavy-duty vehicles—such as trucks and buses—constitute just 3% of all automobiles in India, they contribute nearly half of India’s CO2 emissions from road transportation, according to a 2023 report by the International Energy Agency and government think tank Niti Aayog.