Cleaning Hygiene Today Cleaning Hygiene Magazine
By Gareth Thomas, Managing Director of Specialist Window Cleaning (SWC), the window cleaning arm of Incentive FM Group
As an industry leading business, we are continually looking at ways to stay ahead of competition and keep us at the forefront of change, operating a large fleet of vehicles up and down the country we feel that it is our duty to challenge our carbon footprint in a bid to fight climate change.
With the introduction of schemes such as the Ultra Low Emission Zone in London that currently occupies the same area as the Congestion Charge Zone with the aim improve London’s air quality, we felt it was time where possible we move our fleet over to EVs.
The environmental and economic benefits of switching to EVs are even more clear and as a result, in 2020 we’ve seen a surge in the UKs demand EVs , dramatically showing how the UK is embracing electric mobility and it is no surprise with an EV vehicle producing around 60 per cent less CO2 emissions than its diesel equivalent, as a business we are targeting ourselves with reducing our carbon emissions by 35 per cent in year and a further 30 per cent in year two.
While it may take our businesses time to transition to a fully electric fleet, we are making a start by switching out our London based vehicles for their electric counterparts. Currently we have four electric Renault Kangoo Z.E in the fleet with a further eight set to join the fleet this year including the larger E-Dispatch once our current leases come to an end.
However, with the rapid improvements in vehicle ranges, an ever-growing charge point infrastructure that is better positioned to meet our business needs, it will not be long before rolling this out to the wider business and by the end of 2022 we aim to have at least 75 per cent of our fleet EV based.
Going green to stay ahead
In terms of the finances, EVs are highly cost-competitive for companies, they provide cost reductions over the lifetime of ownership. We have done some comparisons compared to our current running costs and we found that an EV can be driven for as little as 1p per mile, compared with 8-10p per mile for even the most fuel-efficient petrol and diesel vehicles, other benefits are
- Reduced pollution
- Home charging, Reducing miles to travel to petrol stations
- Reduced noise while driving
- No London Congestion Charge for fully electric vehicles
Making the change
Given the current times when protecting the bottom line has never been more important, moving our fleet to EVs will provide some greatly appreciated financial benefits for our employees and our business, furthermore it provides a more sustainable option at a time when we are all demanding action to be taken on protecting the environment. We are pleased to say we have been joined in this initiative by a number of our clients who have installed EV charging points in the carparks and on their grounds, again, increasing the day to day useability of EVs across the country, it leaves us with the question that ‘If we can make a change, we should, no matter how big or small the impact’ we are all in the fight against climate change together.
