The Co-op is pushing ahead with aggressive emissions reductions targets, which have already seen it reduce average vehicle CO2 per km by 47%.

The Co-op’s aggressive eco targets are underpinned by its drive to significantly reduce its company vehicle emissions

The business, a major UK food retailer and a provider of funeral, insurance and legal services, has halved its emissions since 2006, and recently pledged to reduce this by a further 50% by 2025 through science-based targets.

This work is underpinned by its drive to significantly reduce its company vehicle emissions by replacing petrol and diesel cars with electric vehicles. The Co-op has a fleet of more than 2,900 vehicles, comprising 1,300 company cars and the rest made up of specialist vehicles, and in March 2020, it introduced a new fleet policy centred on ultra-low emission vehicles to help contribute to the wider business goals.

Since then, it’s ordered 75 ULEVs to replace traditionally fuelled vehicles on its fleet, and 62% of these new vehicles were delivered during 2020, alongside 35 pure EVs.

Building on this, in December 2020, the Co-op announced it would replace its fleet of fossil-fuel delivery vans with pure EVs by 2025.

And in 2020, the funeral arm of the business took delivery of its first regenerative hybrid hearses, with further electrification investment planned for the future.

The Co-op’s work towards fleet electrification has been supported by its close partnership with Lex Autolease – the two businesses have worked together for more than 13 years. This includes consultation with Lex to provide a tailored vehicle solution, supported by the fleet management and leasing firm’s Sustainability Dashboard, which offers customers tailored insights into key metrics, along with benchmarking.

Dan Payne, head of fleet management at the Co-op, said: “Sustainability is at the forefront of everything we do at Co-op. Having such a diverse fleet can bring challenges as we are often restricted by the availability of appropriate technology.

“Through a combination of considered timing, policy positioning, colleague engagement and our long maintained commercial partnership with Lex Autolease, we have been delighted by our achievements over the last 12 months.”