Actemium UK industrial perimeter goes all-electric with company car fleet
VINCI Energies UK & RoI are phasing out all diesel and petrol company cars in favour of full EV alternatives. Within four years, the switch is expected to reduce the perimeter’s carbon footprint by at least 44%.
Back in September 2020, VINCI Energies UK & RoI introduced a science-based plan to achieve a 25% reduction in carbon emissions by 2025 and reach carbon neutrality by 2050.
Its Actemium UK industrial perimeter (the collection of business units offering electrical and mechanical services to industry) has now taken a major step towards achieving this plan by committing to transition its entire company car fleet to full electric vehicles (EVs).
Andrew Hunter, director of the Actemium UK industrial perimeter, said: “Vehicle fuel is by far the largest contributor to our carbon footprint as the nature of our offer requires us to have a lot of people on the road servicing customers. If we can eliminate these emissions by switching to EVs, we can make a large reduction to our overall environmental impact relatively quickly.”
The Actemium UK industrial perimeter has already replaced 10% of its fleet with full EVs since updating the company car policy in line with the new VINCI Energies UK & RoI environmental strategy. The rest will be replaced as their four-year leases come up for renewal so by the end of this year 45-50% of the fleet will be full EVs and by the end of 2024 the entire company car fleet will be electric.
The perimeter has installed EV charging points at most of its sites and plans to add this infrastructure to all sites by the end of 2021. It also offers free EV charging to employees and is replacing all its standard electricity contracts with green tariffs to support the UK and Ireland’s overall transition to renewable energy.
The switch to EVs has been calculated to save 345 g of CO2 per mile travelled. Given the company’s contract engineers and project managers travel an average of 20,588 miles in a year, an entire EV fleet could generate an annual CO2 saving of 241.5 t – or 44% of the organisation’s carbon footprint.
The next stage of Actemium UK industrial perimeter’s EV journey is to encourage employees to choose EVs for private cars used on company business and switch its van fleet to electric, which is expected to reduce carbon emissions by a further 5.5% and 13.5% respectively. The organisation currently runs three fully electric vans and plans to add three more in 2022.
Image: Actemium press image