Our Story

The inspiration for Blue Sky began one afternoon when Lance, the founder of Blue Sky, was hiking his dog on Mt. Tamalpais in Marin County, California. They were walking alongside the road when a series of heavy diesel trucks greeted them with thick clouds of smoke and soot bellowing from their exhaust pipes. The black clouds left a long trail of smog all the way down the hill. At that moment, Lance wanted nothing more than to rid the Bay Area entirely of diesel smoke. He then set out to create a trucking company that didn’t rely on a heavily toxic fuel source that was bankrupting our country to import.

After countless hours researching alternative fuel sources that could be effectively used in heavy-duty trucking, Biodiesel emerged as the best-fit solution. Soon thereafter, Blue Sky Shipping was created – a company dedicated to environmental awareness and dependence on a domestically-produced, renewable fuel source. Today, Blue Sky is the only environmentally sound trucking company in Northern California.

Since our inception, Blue Sky has been devoted to cultivating economic and environmental ties throughout the Bay Area, while providing excellent service to our clients. We believe that economic growth and environmental sustainability can coexist. Acting as pioneers of the sustainable trucking industry, Blue Sky is actively working to aggregate a community of businesses driven by values instead of simply profits. In combined effort, we hope to set the tone for a global shift toward responsible, accountable business practices.

At Blue Sky, we are pleased to share that our trucking business:

• Drastically reduces trucking emissions that cause major health problems, global warming, acid rain, etc…
• Supports domestic farmers and domestic jobs instead of shipping jobs and capital to the Middle East
• Utilizes a renewable fuel source
• Avoids the need to protect foreign oil interests by military force
• Removes the need for oil tankers to transport petroleum around the world, risking major environmental disasters
• Utilizes a more efficient fuel source than petroleum
• Reduces the U.S. trade deficit
• Emissions smell like French fries instead of toxic pollution

Services

As the Bay Area leader in environmentally sound shipping, Blue Sky offers a diversity of customized services to support your distribution needs. No longer does your business have to rely on diesel guzzling trucks running on foreign oil to transport your goods. Our domestically produced, 100% recycled vegetable oil fuel keeps our trucks running longer and more efficiently than our competitors. However, what distinguishes Blue Sky is our employees’ collective belief in providing excellent customer service while supporting an environmentally sound, domestic fuel source. We are confident that Blue Sky will save your business time and money while helping to make the Bay Area a safer, more enjoyable place to live.

Blue Sky offers the following shipping options to meet your personalized needs:

• Business to Business or Residential
• White Glove and Blanket Warp Delivery Service
• Less Than Truckload (LTL) Shipping
• Warehousing
• iReuse Hauling

To receive price quotes or to have any other questions answered, please call us at (415) 485-6767 or email us at info@blueskyshipping.com

Blue Sky and the Trucking Industry

The trucking industry needs to change. Around 3.3 million light and heavy trucks/buses make up the backbone of the transportation industry. Commercial trucks ride over 1.3 billion miles carrying 73% percent of the value of goods hauled around the United States. 80% of America’s communities depend solely on trucking for shipment of their goods. In all, the trucking industry is quickly approaching the $200 billion mark.

These enormous profits come at a severe cost to the environment. Trucks are the source of 25% of the smog-forming pollutants and over 50% of the soot derived from all highway vehicles; yet they make up less than 2 percent of the vehicles on the road and drive less than 6% of the total miles driven. To put this in greater perspective, trucks emit three times more soot and smog-forming pollutants than a coal-fired power plant, for every unit of energy they burn.

According to the EPA, 107 million Americans breathe dirty air, and trucks play a major role. A single diesel truck can pollute as much as 400 cars, emitting more than 40 compounds directly linked to cancer. Diesel soot, in particular, has recently been singled out as the predominant cancer threat in urban air. The following results have also been linked to the trucking industry:

• Losses in agricultural productivity of $300 million to $1 billion per year due to emissions, according to the Air Resources Board.
• 6% of the nation’s global warming pollution
• Over one-tenth of America’s oil consumption
• $21.5 billion in yearly diesel exhaust-related health care costs from the state of California alone
• Diesel soot is responsible for 70% of California’s risk of cancer from airborne toxics.

So why are we using diesel engines when they are such heavy polluters? Well, diesel trucks are almost twice as fuel efficient, have longer life-spans and lower maintenance costs as their gasoline counterparts. In short, they are more economical. To support profitability in the trucking industry, emission regulations by the US government have been negligent. For example, a car purchased today must emit 28 times less smog-producing pollutants than a car purchased in the 1960’s. However, a new truck has to be only three times cleaner than before emission controls were ever required. While pursuing economic gain, the environment and the health the American public has suffered greatly.

Blue Sky Shipping offers a solution to the concerned consumer. Our trucks are fueled by Biodiesel – a domestically-produced, renewable resource. Read our Biodiesel Fact Sheet. By using Blue Sky, you are directly supporting a positive economic shift in environmental capitalism.

Notes
Rolling Smokestacks. Union of Concerned Scientists website. http://www.ucsusa.org/publications/nucleus.cfm?publicationID=182
2002 Economic Census. Bureau of Transportation website. http://www.bts.gov/publications/commodity_flow_survey/2002/united_states_preliminary/pdf/entire.pdf
Simonson, K. “Triple Threat; Trucking Industry’s forecasts and Trends.” In Fleet Owner Magazine. March 1, 2004.
Clean Vehicles. Union of Concerned Scientists website. http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_vehicles/trucks_and_buses/page.cfm?pageID=1501