A pledge to go electric
Electric Vehicles
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The EV100 initiative, which sees carbon-conscious organisations pledge to transition to an electric vehicle fleet by 2030, has recently celebrated its fifth anniversary. We look at how the initiative has progressed from having ten founding members, to now boasting 128 signatories The EV100 initiative brings together likeWhy did it start? minded companies committed to accelerating EV100 was launched in 2017 as a global the transition to electric vehicles. Through business initiative designed to accelerate a collective pledge to go electric by 2030, acceptance of electric vehicles and its the initiative sends a powerful signal that infrastructure. It was launched in New York the future of transportation is electric. by The Climate Group during Climate Week. The initiative, now in its fifth year, has At the time, it was the only initiative of its recently taken on five new members kind to encourage global businesses to who will collectively transition over commit to electric transport, with members 44,000 vehicles to electric by 2030. committing to transition their petrol and New joiners include global pharmaceutical diesel fleets to electric vehicle fleets by and biosciences company Bayer, 2030. The 10 founding founding British-based multinational members are LeasePlan, Unilever, bank Barclays, Baidu, IKEA Group, HP Inc., The international financial Vattenfall, PG&E, Deutsche five new services provider Post DHL, Metro AG and EV100 Allianz SE, India’s Heathrow Airport. m fastest-growing At the time, Helen will col embers l e c agri-commerce Clarkson, CEO of t i v ely transitio company WayCool The Climate Group, n ove 44,000 and precision said: “EV100 will use vehicles r instrumentation companies’ collective t o e lectric b supplier Spectris Plc. global buying power and y In addition to influence on employees and 2030 electrifying their customers to build demand fleets, WayCool and and cut costs. The members see Spectris Plc have also the business logic in leading a faster committed to installing charging transition and addressing local air quality infrastructure across their estate for issues in their markets. They are setting a use by their staff and customers. competitive challenge to the auto industry to With these new joiners, membership now deliver more EVs, sooner and at lower cost.” stands at 128. In five years, EV100 has grown from ten founding members to a Net zero goals global network of businesses committed One of the five new joiners is Barclay’s bank, to the growth of electromobility across who has a commitment to electrify its UK fleet almost 100 markets worldwide. by 2025, and global fleet by 2030. Myriam
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Coneim, Barclays’ global sustainability and governance lead, operations, said: “In March 2020 we become one of the first banks to announce an ambition to be net zero by 2050, which includes our operational emissions. To decarbonise our operations, earlier this year we committed to transitioning all of our UK vehicle fleet to electric by 2025 with an additional target of 2030 for our global fleet, using ultra-low emissions vehicles for the latter where electric is not viable. “Addressing this viability challenge was key to our decision to join EV100, and we look forward to working together with Climate Group and other members to speed up the transition to electric, particularly in less mature EV markets.” Rebecca Dunn, head of sustainability at Spectris, said: “It’s an exciting time for EV100 and we are pleased to be one of the latest companies to sign up to this ambitious initiative. We’re committing to electrifying our 430-strong fleet and rolling out charging infrastructure for our staff and customers. Committing to EV100 now will help us achieve our net zero by 2040 target. We’re looking forward to working with likeminded companies and working with our supply chain and customers to develop their own EV fleets, too.” Werner Baumann, CEO and chief sustainability officer at Bayer, said: “We are pleased to be joining EV100. As a leading Life Science company, we have implemented ambitious sustainability targets and the decision to convert our E
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