5,000 EVs

Today we’ve announced that we celebrated the deployment of our 5,000^th electric van (EV) across our delivery and collection fleet, at Sheffield City Delivery office, demonstrating our continued commitment to reach Net Zero by 2040.

Richard Sewell, customer operations manager at Sheffield City DO, said: “It’s been great to have the opportunity to be leading the way in the rollout of Royal Mail’s new electric fleet and to have had the 5,000^th vehicle delivered to Sheffield City DO.  The new vans are becoming a familiar site on the streets of Sheffield and our posties are really excited about doing their bit to reduce air and noise pollution in the town.”

So far, 165 delivery or collection units across the country have made the transition to move to either full or part electric deliveries and collections. The sites with EVs include many cities where low emission zones are in force, including London, Bristol, Glasgow, Cambridge and Oxford.

Jenny Hall, director of corporate affairs explains ‘The environment is the next battleground for businesses, we are determined to drive changes that minimise our impact on the environment and to remain ahead of the competition.

‘We need to transform the way we collect, process, and deliver the billions of letters and parcels we handle each year, and do this across all elements of our operation.’

Our delivery network is a significant proportion of our environmental footprint and represents 13% of our total emissions and 23% of our air pollutant emissions. The transition to electric-powered, by energy procured from renewable sources, is an important part of achieving net-zero deliveries. And as well reducing emissions, EVs will also reduce vehicle maintenance by around 60% and fuel costs by around 78%.

It is anticipated that our electrification scheme will break even in four years and achieve savings for the business over the nine-year lifecycle of the vehicles, when the investment of the electric van and charging infrastructure are factored in.