Climate Change
As the UK's largest bus operator we have an important role to play in minimising greenhouse gas emissions from the surface transport sector. With a fleet of over 9,000 buses, we have a responsibility to reduce these emissions as far as possible. This year we prepared a Climate Change Strategy to help us achieve this.
This strategy commits us to monitor and measure our carbon dioxide emissions and reduce them against both short - and long-term targets. Carbon dioxide emissions are also generated from the heating and lighting of buildings and business travel. These contributions are however very small compared to fuel usage which generates over 95% of our carbon dioxide emissions.
The carbon dioxide emissions from our buses are directly related to fuel consumption, which is influenced by a wide range of factors such as vehicle age and weight, engine type, average speed, driving technique, nature of route and the number of passengers on the bus. Overall our buses have become less fuel-efficient in the last few years as new vehicles have had lower fuel efficiency than their predecessors. The lower efficiency is due to additional abatement technology fitted to the newer vehicles to reduce other pollutants such as nitrogen oxides and particulates in line with regulatory requirements. However, this trend is now reversing with recent trials on the latest emission specification engines demonstrating reductions in emissions of pollutants as well as improved fuel consumption.
Achieving Emission Reductions
In the short term, the focus of our Climate Change Strategy is to reduce carbon dioxide emissions through improvements in fuel efficiency and conversion to 5% biodiesel. This year we have gradually introduced biodiesel in to our operations where it is available. We have also started a fuel efficiency programme.
Over the past 12 months we have achieved a 3% reduction in the total carbon dioxide emissions from our buses and a 14% reduction in emissions from our buildings which equates to 29,751 tonnes of carbon dioxide. Our carbon dioxide emissions per passenger journey have reduced by 4.45%.
We are very aware of the debate surrounding the use of biofuels. We have audited our suppliers to determine the source of our fuel and to ensure it does not originate from unsustainable sources. The majority of our biodiesel is produced from waste cooking oil and tallow which has the lowest carbon footprint and reuses a waste product.
There is currently no standard methodology for calculating and reporting on emissions from the biodiesel component of fuel which have been calculated on our behalf by the Edinburgh Centre for Carbon Management. Developing practice is to include well-to-wheel impacts into the calculation. This means the calculation also takes account of the emissions generated during the production and transportation of the fuel.
To allow us to compare data with previous reporting periods and in line with international standards on greenhouse gas reporting we present our carbon dioxide emissions on a well-to-wheel basis as well as using emission factors from the greenhouse gas reporting protocol in line with our historic reporting processes. To maintain consistency with previous years we also use these latter figures where carbon dioxide emissions relating to the UK Bus division appear elsewhere in this report.
