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CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY - Sustainable Transportation |
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There is a growing demand for construction in the UK - both for house building and civil engineering projects. This requires a commensurate growth in distribution capacity, from the source of the product or material to the building site. Given this unavoidable requirement, Wolseley UK is pioneering new ways of making distribution more sustainable. With a fleet of about 2,500 commercial vehicles, which transport materials and products from distribution centres to branches and customers around the country, Wolseley UK can minamilise its negative impact on the environment by reducing the amount of carbon dioxide emitted in the course of its business. Wolseley UK has identified three logistics initiatives that provide a positive environmental impact: Mileage reduction by Wolseley UK vehicles:The distribution of plumbing and building materials within Wolseley UK has been done in the past by individual branch scheduling, whereby each branch would route and schedule its own vehicles. However, it was evident that many vehicles were under utilised, or running with small payloads, and more efficient route schedules could be used. As a result, Wolseley UK introduced a 'centralised transport hub' in three trial locations. This process initially began with a full-scale pilot scheme conducted around Derby, where results demonstrated a reduction in both the number of vehicles needed, and the overall mileage taken to complete the same number of deliveries. The success of this pilot scheme meant that this initiative was rolled out to more areas, with the goal of reducing the fleet by 50 vehicles and driving 1,000,000 fewer RM. This should produce a rediretion in CO2 emissions of more than 600 tonnes. Mileage reduction by Wolseley suppliers:Wolseley UK offers the highest level of service to customers by providing a daily delivery to each branch from a distribution centre. The business objective was to improve the utilisation of the Wolseley UK trucks during deliveries. As a result, we adjusted our process where vehicles, having completed their deliveries to branches, would route to the nearest participating supplier and collect the Wolseley UK orders, whenever possible. This inevitably reduced the mileage supplier vehicles needed to deliver to Wolseley UK's distribution centres, as well as reducing the overall environmental impact of the supply chain, and resulted in an annual CO2 saving of 1,000 tonnes. Reductions in the environmental impact of vehicle operation:
Other initiatives have also been identified and implemented to reduce the environmental impact of our logistics operations. A good example of this is the use of bio diesel, a more environmentally friendly fuel than pure mineral based diesel, at two of our distribution centres. The use of bio diesel will also be extended to our other distribution centres as it becomes commercially available in other areas. In the year 2005/6 Wolseley UK used over 2,000,000 litres of bio-deisel, making Wolseley UK one of the largest users of this fuel in the UK.
Wolseley UK |
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