Lex Autolease & May Gurney Strike New ‘Green’ Partnership
Lex Autolease, the UK’s leading fleet funding and management specialists have undertaken a new partnership with May Gurney, the infrastructure services company, that will focus on managing an emissions-reducing initiative to assist May Gurney in hitting their target of reducing the company’s carbon footprint by 50% by 2012.
The programme will commence with a trial of a retro-fit hybrid system, which uses existing mounting points on the vehicle and is supplied by Ashwoods, which will be incorporated onto one of May Gurney’s existing commercial vehicles and will undergo four months of extensive performance monitoring. The unit delivers lower emissions by utilising the energy from regenerative braking, saving an anticipated 14.9% of emissions (based on the European Drive Cycle).
At the end of the trial period, if successful the system will remain on the vehicle, and other suitable vehicles will be identified for fitment with the potential for a large scale roll-out of retro-fit hybrid vans throughout May Gurney’s commercial vehicle fleet.
Chris Impey, Customer Relationship Manager, speaking about the partnership with Lex Autolease to drive down commercial fleet emissions said; “By 2012, May Gurney has a target to reduce carbon emissions group-wide by 50%. In advising us on a programme of reducing the carbon footprint left by our commercial vehicles, the Lex Autolease consultancy team have once again delivered on their expertise. We fully expect the programme to be extended to our fleet of commercial vehicles.”
Lex Autolease’s in-house Strategic Fleet Consultancy team first worked with May Gurney in March 2009 to advise them on a CO2 reduction strategy and also manages the May Gurney commercial fleet of vehicles via a sole-supplier agreement that commenced in 2002.
Chris Chandler, Associate Director at Lex Autolease’s Strategic Fleet Consultancy team said; “We were tasked to identify CO2 reduction initiatives, however May Gurney wanted to reap immediate environmental benefits and not be tied into waiting for current vehicles to finish their lease contracts. This retro-fit technology has the potential to reduce emissions and fuel consumption on existing fleet vehicles, thereby reducing fuel costs, and then be transferred onto new vehicles when required. We are looking at a two to three tonne annual reduction in CO2 emissions on this trial vehicle. This is just one of the environmental initiatives put forward to May Gurney”.
The retro-hybrid technology has been developed by the British firm, Ashwoods Automotive. Commenting on the initiative, Mark Roberts, Managing Director of Ashwoods said; “The initiative to reduce carbon emissions of the May Gurney commercial vehicle fleet is an opportunity that we welcome. At Ashwoods, we pride ourselves on developing technology that harnesses vehicles energy and as a parallel delivers lower emissions.”
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