John Lewis has announced plans to build a new biomethane gas filling station as it pledged to stop using fossil fuels across its whole fleet within 10 years.
The location at the retailer’s head office in Bracknell, built with Air Liquide, will allow the Waitrose fleet in Bracknell to begin using biomethane.
The station is set to open in December 2020, with around 120 Waitrose heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) served by the site, each saving over 100 tonnes of CO2 per year. The company said the vehicles are also quieter than normal diesel vehicles.
John Lewis plans on switching all its 600 heavy goods vehicles to biomethane by 2028 and said it aims to stop using fossil fuels across its entire transport fleet by 2030.
Natural gas trucks produce lower emissions than standard diesel ones. Biomethane is a form of natural gas made from decomposing organic matter, which reduces emissions still further. Compared to electric vehicles, the vehicles are more powerful and can carry bigger payloads.
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.”
