HAVI Germany Accelerates Alternative Fuels Drive

HAVI Germany Accelerates Alternative Fuels Drive

HAVI’s alternative fuels partnership with Scania is making excellent progress in Germany, where we will soon operate one of the country’s largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) vehicle fleets just six months after introducing our first gas-powered vehicles. HAVI Germany recently switched nine more delivery trucks to natural gas and is on track to operate 35 LNG vehicles from our Duisburg DC by the end of June. To speed our low-carbon journey, HAVI is also growing its own network of LNG filling stations.

 

A truck on a city street

 

Driving Progress, Delivering Benefits
This success story is a great example of how our colleagues in Germany are prioritizing efforts to minimize emissions. In fact, Sustainability has shaped the way HAVI does business since day one, and the success of our partnership with Scania is reinforcing our position as a recognized sustainability leader in the logistics sector. Under the slogan ‘Our Environment, Our Drive’, this partnership aims to transfer up to 70% of HAVI’s vehicle fleet to alternative fuels by 2021 in several of the European countries where HAVI operates.

The environmental benefits of using alternative fuels such as LNG are already clear. Not only do LNG-powered trucks emit lower levels of CO2, nitrous gases and fine particulates than petrol and diesel trucks, but they are also much quieter.

Delivering these benefits is becoming increasingly urgent as the threat of low-emission zones, congestion charges and diesel bans in European towns and cities grows. As Roland Schmidt, Managing Director, HAVI Logistics, Germany, explains: “For our customers, sustainable supply chains with the lowest possible emissions are becoming more and more important. With our LNG fleet, we are contributing towards making our customers’ supply chains and products more sustainable.”

Network Approach
In November 2018, HAVI opened Germany's fourth LNG filling station in cooperation with its partner GasCom. Another HAVI LNG filling station in Wunstorf, near Hanover, is scheduled to come onstream at the start of 2020. “Germany’s national LNG filling station network is still developing slowly,” comments Torsten Oldhues, Managing Director, Operations, HAVI. “So, opening our own stations was essential to making our alternative fuels strategy a success.”

The network is already delivering benefits beyond HAVI. For example, over 40 LNG trucks operated by other carriers regularly refuel at our Duisburg DC. By making it easier for all LNG vehicles to stay on the road, HAVI is encouraging more industry operators to follow our low-carbon lead.