Business transport opportunities

When looking at business transport options, Peter White explained that HGVs produce 16% of greenhouse gases, despite only travelling 5% of the total mileage on our roads. While Project Rapid is currently rolling out rapid charging provisions for EVs at motorway services nationwide, adding HGV charging options will make a huge impact on our national emissions.

Analysis from National Grid shows that expanding the Government’s Rapid Charging Fund to cover all road transport would give enough grid capacity to cover 78% of on-route HGV charging and hydrogen refuelling, and a small marginal cost increase could get us to 100%. National Grid have also invested £1m in the Take Charge project, which has developed new technology to deliver the electrical capacity required to power 80 rapid EV chargers at a single service station site - a saving of almost £500k for each site installation compared to the technology that is currently in use.

Switching business fleets to EVs is a straightforward solution, and encouraging employees to do the same with their own vehicles can be achieved through installing workplace chargers, as well as offering salary sacrifice schemes. You can read more about EVs at work here, and about using e-bikes for business cargo here.

There are emerging opportunities for the adoption of hydrogen in niche areas like heavy transport, particularly where electric transport if not possible, and if hydrogen is generated from co-located electrolysis with local renewable generation.

If you’re interested in finding out more, reach out on info@actionnetzero.org.

Looking at transport emissions, in the South West specifically, a third of our CO2 emissions are related to the use of cars. Encouraging behaviour change is required to shift our transport use to more sustainable options, and this requires public transport options that are reliable and affordable enough to be an attractive alternative to cars. Additionally, raising awareness of existing underutilised public transport routes will help people to make the shift sooner.

One of the easiest ways for us all to reduce our carbon footprint and meet our collective Net Zero target is to reduce our overall energy demand.

The IPCC’s latest report calls for a society-wide approach to reducing how much energy we use - meaning that we need to change every part of how we live, from housing to transport, at a global level. This requires action from governments and larger organisations, as well as each of us at an individual level.