Purpose - The environmental impacts of transportation are rarely brought into decision making frameworks. The purpose of this paper is to introduce a framework and tool to help in these organizational decisions.Design/methodology/approach - A survey analysis was carried out amongst waste-management companies within the project ETIENNE. Using this information, drivers and hurdles to the environmentally motivated optimization of transport were identified.Findings - This research framework presents results of perceived hurdles in transport process optimization. Results of the research are grounded with definitions and discussion of the relevance of logistic processes.Research limitations/implications - Analysis provided in this paper shows that there is no practicable tool to consider environmental impacts in management decisions in transportation. Therefore, a software tool, the so-called ETIENNE-Tool, for the evaluation of transportation alternatives, is developed. Theoretical principles for the environmental evaluation of transport processes are also proposed.Practical implications - Organizational tasks - such as the selection and planning of transportation relations; employment of means of transportation; planning of locations; finally performing of operative business - can be fulfilled in a more environmentally sound manner.Originality/value - Based on the ETIENNE-Tool and taking into consideration stakeholders' requirements, different transportation chains for one transportation task can be easily compared and transportation can be planned efficiently.