Volvo Logistics is participating in a carbon-conscious joint venture with DHL, IKEA, H&M and Preem that has led to the opening of the first petrol station in western Sweden selling environmentally-adapted fuel. The station is based at Skandiahemnen port in Gothenburg, close to Volvo’s plants and the trans-shipment terminal in Arendal.
The company is aiming to make a 20% reduction in the carbon content of its transport to Volvo Group and Volvo Car Corporation plants by 2010. The fuel being sold at the Skandiahemnen port – ACP Diesel Bio30 – contains 30% of the renewable fuel RME (rape methyl ester).
In Sweden Volvo Car Corporation has a plant in Torslanda near Gothenburg making the S80, V70, XC70 and XC90, as well as the joint venture Pininfarina Sverige plant, also nearby, which produces the C70. Volvo Group, meanwhile, has truck facilities in Umeå, Köping and Skövde.
“If large, transport-intensive companies like us collaborate, we can produce a far greater effect. I think we are going to see more partnerships like this in the future,” said Åke Niklasson, President of Volvo Logistics.
Volvo is also a member of KNEG (standing for climate-neutral goods transport by road), a collaboration with Swedish Road Administration, Chalmers University of Technology, Preem, Schenker and Green Cargo amongst others.
Volvo Trucks reported in May that KNEG had saved 120,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions in 2008 through the use of more fuel efficient trucks, low blending of bio diesel into fossil diesel and through training programmes in eco driving. The savings were reportedly equal to the annual emissions from around 2,300 heavy trucks.
DB Schenker also runs a train service to the Volvo plant in Gothenburg, called Viking Rail, carrying automobile parts from Kornwestheim and Hanover in Germany. The 615 metre-long 1,400 ton trains run the distance without any change of traction.
In related news Volvo Group has won one of Business Watch Magazine’s Top 50 Green Companies Awards in China for its supply of commercial transport solutions. Its hybrid technology for heavy vehicles also saw it awarded the Top 10 Green Products/Solutions Prize.
