According to SMMT business fleets are responsible for over half of new car and van sales in the UK. This means that in order to achieve the government’s net zero strategy, to fully decarbonise the power system by 2035, businesses like Seddon need to take action.
As part of our commitment to lowering our carbon emissions our Transport team have been tasked with making our 160+ strong vehicle fleet more carbon efficient.
This includes the introduction of hybrid and electric vehicles, charging stations at the offices and educating employees about the financial and environment benefits of using an eco-friendly vehicles.
Switching to ZEV’s (Zero Emissions Vehicles) has many benefits including cost and emissions savings with research suggesting that an all-electric fleet will cost up to 75% less than the equivalent petrol or diesel fleet.
Despite ZEVs emitting zero tailpipe emissions, there are still emissions associated with generating electricity for EVs. Transport & Environment concludes that in Europe, battery electric cars currently emit on average 3 times less carbon dioxide (CO2) than the equivalent petrol or diesel car, after factoring in emissions from electricity generation, car and battery production.
Over the last 5 years the percentage of electric and hybrid vehicles in the Seddon fleet has grown from 27% to 56% in 2023 and this number continues to grow.
Moving forwards our plan is to:
- Completely replace all iternal combustion engine (ICE) and plug-in hybrid cars with electric vehicles (EVs) by 2035
- Invest in alternative fuels for our diesel vans, such as HVO fuel which can reduce emissions by 80%
- Explore opportunities to replace ICE vans with electric models, where suitable for our operations
- Install more EV charging points across all Seddon offices and sites
- Electric Vehicle (EV) salary sacrifice: encourages our employees to drive EVs to reduce employee commuting emissions.
- Adopt a green travel plan that:
- Encourages carpooling.
- Provides education for staff on environmentally friendly travel practices
- Consideration of route distance optimisation within travel planning
- Introduce a public transport salary sacrifice scheme