Swedish retail giant ICA Gruppen has announced that it will switch to renewable fuels by 2030 for all its road transport operations in the country.
The initiative is part of its new fuel strategy which aims to reduce the environmental impact of transport across its operations.
The retailer intends to achieve this goal by 2025 in the metropolitan areas of Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmö.
ICA will increase investments in new technology and fossil-free fuels to achieve its target. It will also evaluate initiatives to support the production of biofuels.
Challenges
CEO of ICA Gruppen, Per Strömberg, commented, "Development of renewable fuels is making progress, but it needs to be accelerated if we are to achieve our goal of being fossil-free by 2030.
"This shift is encumbered by quite a few challenges, where technology in vehicle development, availability, and infrastructure for fossil-free fuels, prices of vehicles and fuels, and uncertainty surrounding political decisions are some of the most important."
The new fuel strategy will take into account all road transport operations across ICA Gruppen’s companies in Sweden, including national transport and all European transport from suppliers to its warehouses, ICA said.
'Fuel Prioritisation'
In addition, the company has developed a tool to facilitate prioritisation in transitional work towards reducing climate impact.
Per Strömberg continued, "Fuel prioritisation will guide operations with respect to the choice of vehicle type and fuel, where we will rank existing fuels according to their climate impact.
"We believe in diversification of fuels, and we will thereby continue with the work we are already doing in testing various types of fossil-free fuels. For example, electric vehicles are something we are studying more closely."
© 2019 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Dayeeta Das. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine.
