I want to give an introduction into how Scania has seized upon sustainability, what we do, and hopefully, create some inspiration: the question is what can you do as a company and as users of of heavy trucks?
Driving Scania’s shift into sustainability has become our purpose and part of our core strategy. Together, with our customers and partners, we are driving the shift towards a sustainable transport system. We need to break away from the correlation between increasing demand for transport and the increase in carbon emissions, noise, congestion and accidents.
We are investing a lot in finding sustainable solutions. And we also believe that sustainable solutions will be the new normal.
This will be the case in the future. It may already be here today but it will be even more important in the future. Sustainability is not all about environment and safety and so on, it is also about economical sustainability. If the industry is going to be sustainable in the long run, it also has to make economic sense and we believe that this can be achieved.
However, we cannot do this on our own. We need all of you. We need all of the different stakeholders in this. We are trying to work with the buyers of transport services. We’re also trying to work with the operators, the transport companies, of course, as well as infrastructure partners, and governments and academia, and so on. Afterall, we need to look at the whole ecosystem of transport to make it sustainable.
Another way to look at sustainability is to look at the product life cycle. This is a different perspective on it, but all along the value chain we have an impact on the environment, and we have an impact on people’s lives.
In a way, it all starts with R&D (research and development). We spend about 650 million euros per year on R&D and the major chunk of that goes into sustainable options.
Then we have the whole organisation with the production, the sales, and so on. Globally, we have about 50,000 plus employees. Each and every individual has an impact as well and we have the whole supply chain network.
We are working with all this, with our suppliers, with our employees, however, Scania’s challenge is that our main carbon footprint is coming from when our products are in use. Over 90% of our CO2 footprint comes from the use of our products. So of course, there we need to put in a lot of effort.
We have signed up to the science-based targets as part of an initiative to reach the goals of the Paris agreement of limiting, the global warming to maximum 2 degrees Celsius.
If all the companies around the world sign up to this and do their part, we would reach these targets. We were one of the first ones in our industry to do so and we need to look at our footprint, our operation and have set a target of reducing our CO2 emissions by 50%.
With the major aspect being when our products and we are targeting a reduction of 20% but how are we doing that?
We are improving our current range of products including our internal engine efficiency as demonstrated by the new technology introduced in out New Truck Generation which was recently launched in the region. And there are more improvements to the internal combustion engine that will come in the near future.
To achieve smart, safe and sustainable transport we need to take out waste from the whole logistics chain. Connected vehicles are giving us very valuable input into R&D and how to optimise Scania’s products. We have close to 1.5 million vehicles with connectivity solutions installed and thse are helping to improve vehicle specifications and, most importantly, provide insight for the operator to see how they can optimise their feet.
When we talk about sustainable transport in everything we do, we need to look at energy and eficiency. Regardless of what it is, if it’s a diesel engine or an electric motor.
One important area for Scania is working with customers on driver coaching and optimising truck specifications for their applications. While it is also something that we are already focus on, there are further improvements being made on this.
There is a lot to gain by optimising the specification for each and every application. For instance, traditionally a 6×4 truck has been used for fuel distribution. Now with a 6×2 such as the one demonstrated at the Truck & Fleet Conference, we can reduce the fuel consumption. The beauty of it is that by saving the environment, it’s also saving money.
We also need to work with renewable fuels. Some of the fuels when it comes to CO2 reductions that we have or that we can use, include compressed biogas as well as CNG and LNG.
The typical reduction in CO2 with gas is something between 50 to 90% typically but it is also around 70 and 80% for HVO (hydro-treated vegetable oil). This is also a fuel that is not readily available here in this region but all Euro 5 and Euro 6 engines can work on HVO.
Switching is relatively straightforward and our engines can basically work on any blend of biodiesel with a bit of adjustment.
Using 2015 as a base level by 2025, we should reach a 20% reduction in emissions. Some of this reduction, will be achieved by fuel suppliers adding biodiesel into the fuel mix. We don’t see this fuel used extensively in the region compared to other parts of the world but we believe it is improving.
In the last year, Scania introduced a number of products in a number of selected markets and more will come. And hopefully we will soon see electric vehicles here in our region.
Electrification will be a very important part in achieving sustainable transport. However, electrification is not the sole answer. Electric vehicles can play a big part in achieving our goals but it must come from a green source – if it comes from a coal or oil power, plant than we don’t do not have any reduction in emissions, we probably have the opposite.
The industry must realise that there is no single silver bullet for this. There are different solutions and we believe that different solutions will be suitable for different type of operations and different locations.
Read our complete coverage of the Truck & Fleet Conference UAE in the July issue of Truck & Fleet Middle East magazine out next week.
