Sustainability – a Digital Transformation

Bottom Line: Christensen uses tank monitoring to meet economic, environmental, and social sustainability goals. 

Christensen, Inc., — an NPGA member and a second-generation, family-owned company– distributes fuels, lubricants, and propane across the Pacific Northwest.  Committed to looking at new ways to improve efficiency and customer service within the transportation, construction, industrial and agriculture sectors, Christensen has embraced tank monitoring.

“Not only do I recommend tank monitoring, but my entire team does, too,” said Christensen General Manager Marci Ballard. “Recently on Facebook, our Transportation Manager, Jeremy Ball, was promoting monitors to a propane forum. He specifically mentioned how reliable our monitors are, and how they’ve made the day-to-day operations of dispatchers, drivers and sales easier. Tank monitoring and the associated analytics software has had a huge impact on our back-office systems. We’ve been able to integrate tank readings into our system to give us the data we need to run our business. And it’s all in one place now.”

Achieving Three Pillars of Sustainability

Christensen runs its business based on three pillars of sustainability: economic, environmental, and social. Tank monitors and their technology platform positively influence these pillars.

Economic sustainability: From an economic standpoint, Christensen’s ability to remotely track fuel levels has allowed targeted deliveries based on real data.  When it’s difficult to find drivers, doing more with less is the name of the game.

Environmental sustainability: Achieving more gallons with fewer deliveries reduces carbon emissions.  Christensen has the data to show how increasing drop size has also helped reduce unnecessary trips – and they’re taking that information to their customers that share their sustainability goals.

Social sustainability: Cristensen supports the communities they operate in and their team members. To continue doing this well into the future, they have embraced technology.  “If we do nothing to change what our industry has always done, we won’t be here to be a part of the transformation to clean energy,” Ballard said.

We want your story, too.  We want to highlight NPGA member companies community programs or using technology to support propane’s role in the low-carbon future. Please send your story to Alima Khanu, [email protected].