John Lewis places ‘largest UK order’ of gas trucks as it starts building dedicated biomethane filling station18 June 2020
The John Lewis Partnership is building a dedicated biomethane gas filling station and placed an order for 143 gas trucks, to be in operation by the end of 2020, to enable its largest heavy goods vehicles to use a low-carbon alternative to diesel.
The Partnership says it is the largest order of biomethane trucks in the UK. Since 2015, 85 of the Partnership’s heavy diesel vehicles have already been replaced with biomethane trucks.
The company has announced an ambition to stop using fossil fuels across its entire 4,800 strong transport fleet by 2030. Its 600 heavy goods vehicles are to be switched to low-carbon biomethane by 2028.
The new biomethane gas filling station will be built in conjunction with Air Liquide and will open at the partnership’s head office in Bracknell in December 2020, making it the business’s first on-site gas filling station. It will facilitate the conversion of the Bracknell Waitrose fleet to biomethane and complement gas filling stations already in use near to John Lewis and Waitrose regional distribution centres in Leyland, Lancashire, and in Northampton.
Serving approximately 120 Waitrose heavy goods trucks, the vehicles will run on biomethane made from food waste and waste materials rather than diesel. This will reduce CO2 emissions by 80%, with each truck saving over 100 tonnes of CO2 every year. These gas trucks are also quieter, decreasing noise pollution, which is especially important for urban deliveries. Over the next seven years, the Bracknell site alone will save over 70,000 tonnes of CO2, equivalent to the carbon footprint produced by over 13,000 UK households.
To reduce carbon emissions across its transport network further, the Partnership’s ambition is to eliminate fossil fuels from its commercial vehicle and car fleet by 2030. This radical initiative could see 1,750 electric vans and light trucks introduced and approximately 750 refrigerated trailers converted from diesel to electric drive.
Justin Laney, partner and general manager of central transport at the John Lewis Partnership, said: “The evidence of climate change is all around us, so it’s important we act now using available technology rather than wait for unproven solutions to appear. We are working hard towards our new aim of removing all fossil fuel from our transport fleet by 2030, which will reduce our carbon emissions by over half a million tonnes and gets us well on the way to our ultimate target of operating a net zero carbon emission fleet.”
Author
William Dalrymple
Related Companies
Air Liquide UK Ltd
John Lewis Partnership
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