John Lewis lays down green challenge

One of the UK's foremost supermarket and department store groups has set a green challenge to vehicle manufacturers to come up with a fleet of cleaner distribution vehicles. The John Lewis Partnership (JLP), which also operates Waitrose, says it wants to cut its carbon footprint with cleaner vehicles in the 3.5-tonne , 7.5-tonne , 38-tonne trailer and semi-trailer refrigeration categories. JLP approached Cenex, the low carbon research centre based at Loughborough University, to co-ordinate the challenge, and it wants the new vehicles available within two to three years.

Peter Speers, knowledge transfer network manager at Cenex, says that the significance of the JLP initiative is that it is a private company. He adds: "Until now, most of our work has been with the public sector. This is the first time a blue-chip private-sector company has thrown its weight behind low carbon transportation." But Speers admits that there is no guarantee any new developments will automatically result in an order to supply vehicles to JLP.

He says: "This is clearly an attempt to stimulate vehicle development from John Lewis, but there is no direct commitment to orders. We have had a very positive response from manufacturers. It might well be that there are already available vehicles, which John Lewis has not yet considered, but now will." JLP says it is looking for deeper carbon cuts than current technology allows because it wants to cut is carbon footprint considerably. Its delivery vehicles currently cover 43 million miles a year.