Learning from our Electric Vehicle pilot project

Pilot project exploring the use of electric trucks to deliver products from our factories to external warehouses

To reach our ambitious goal to be carbon neutral in London by 2040 in our scope 1 & 2 emissions, we are focusing in the short to mid-term on a combination of operational efficiency projects, changing our energy mix through an increasing use of renewable fuels and transitioning our vehicle fleet to alternative energy sources.

We recently completed a pilot project exploring the use of electric trucks to deliver our products from our UK factories to external warehouses.

Over the course of the three-week pilot, the electric truck saved 1.125 tonnes of CO2 emissions compared to the regular Diesel vehicle.

The truck used 2.8MW of electricity over the three weeks, and was charged thanks to Go-Ahead, our neighbouring bus garage who kindly let us use their super-fast chargers during the day, whilst their electric buses were at work. We have donated £1000, split between Transaid, a charity promoting safe and sustainable transport in developing countries, and our local community centre the Royal Docks Activity and Learning Centre (RDLAC), in Go-Ahead’s name in appreciation of their support.

The truck travelled around 1,000 miles between our Thames Refinery, Plaistow Wharf factory and our external warehouse over the three-week pilot. While an electric truck weighs more than a diesel truck so it carries around 10% less cargo by weight, we can work around that by using electric trucks to transport our bulkier products that weigh less or specifying trucks with smaller batteries.

As a result of the success of the pilot, we’re now reviewing with our haulier partners to see how we might take learnings from this pilot forward.