For six years, the CleanBC Heavy-Duty Vehicle Efficiency (HDVE) Program demonstrated a simple but often overlooked truth: meaningful emissions reductions in trucking do not have to wait for future technologies. They can be achieved today, using the trucks already moving goods across British Columbia.
Delivered by the British Columbia Trucking Association (BCTA) from 2019 to 2025, the HDVE Program became one of the province’s most practical and effective climate initiatives for commercial transportation. Rather than relying on mandates or untested technologies, the program focused on proven strategies, such as driver training on fuel and emission-saving techniques, and targeted incentives for installing emission-reducing retrofits.
Over its six-year run, the program supported and trained individuals across more than 500 trucking companies, representing over 40,000 heavy-duty vehicles. The results were substantial. At the national level, an estimated 144 million litres of diesel were saved, translating into roughly 391 million kilograms of CO₂e emissions reductions. That impact is equivalent to removing more than 83,000 passenger vehicles from the road. Crucially, these reductions were immediate. They occurred in the same years the measures were implemented, not decades later.
One of the clearest lessons from the HDVE Program was the power of behavioural change. The Fuel Efficiency Management Course focused on everyday driving practices such as reducing unnecessary idling, managing speed, smoothing acceleration, and using proper shifting techniques. These practical adjustments delivered meaningful fuel savings across fleets of all sizes. In an industry defined by tight margins and long-lived equipment, few interventions offer comparable returns with such low barriers to adoption.
The incentive component reinforced these gains. Aerodynamic devices, idle-reduction equipment, and low-rolling-resistance tires consistently delivered fuel savings across a wide range of duty cycles and operating conditions. These were not experimental technologies or future concepts. They were commercially available tools that helped carriers lower operating costs, improve driver comfort, and reduce emissions without replacing entire vehicles. Together, training and technology formed a simple, effective combination that worked across the province.
The HDVE story matters because it reflects the realities the trucking industry faces today. BCTA’s 2024 white paper confirmed what carriers experience on the ground: zero-emission trucks are not yet a universal solution (British Columbia Trucking Association, Pathway to Achieving BC’s Heavy-Duty Trucking 2030 Climate Targets, 2024). Range limitations, payload constraints, infrastructure gaps, and high upfront costs mean most heavy-duty trucks operating in BC will remain diesel-powered well into the next decade. Even aggressive zero-emission sales targets cannot deliver the near-term emissions reductions climate policy requires on their own.
This is where the HDVE Program helped reframe the conversation. It demonstrated the value of a hybrid approach, one that treats efficiency and electrification as complementary, not competing, pathways. Operational efficiency and retrofit technologies deliver immediate emissions reductions, while also supporting the longer-term transition to electric and hydrogen vehicles by lowering energy demand and improving overall performance. It is not an either-or choice. It is about sequencing solutions to deliver results now while preparing for what comes next.
As highlighted in the BCTA 2024 white paper, the program also underscored the importance of a lifecycle approach to emissions reduction. Optimizing the existing truck fleet allows British Columbia to secure immediate emissions benefits while maximizing the full value of vehicles already in service. Heavy-duty trucks are long-lived, capital-intensive assets, and replacing them prematurely risks overlooking the significant embodied emissions associated with manufacturing new vehicles. In many cases, those embedded emissions can offset, or even outweigh, the expected gains from early replacement. By extending vehicle efficiency through training and retrofit technologies, the HDVE Program demonstrated how emissions can be reduced responsibly while aligning fleet turnover with natural replacement cycles.
As the HDVE Program concludes, its legacy is simple and practical. Efficiency delivers. Training changes outcomes. Targeted incentives work. Together, they show that meaningful emissions reductions in trucking can be achieved now, using solutions that fit how fleets operate. As British Columbia advances its transportation emissions-reduction goals, the HDVE experience makes clear that efficiency, training, and proven technologies remain essential to delivering real-world results.
