11 July 2011

Coca-Cola set to fuel biomethane fleet for the London Olympics
Coca-Cola Enterprises will be delivering its branded soft drinks to the London 2012 Olympic Games on trucks fuelled by biomethane as part of a drive to cut carbon emissions within its fleet operations.

Speaking at the UK AD & Biogas event in Birmingham last week, Coca-Cola Enterprises' (CCE) customer logistics director, Wendy Manning, said the company was investing 1.75M to run 14 of its trucks on biomethane for the duration of the games, of which it is an official sponsor.

"In the Olympics every delivery we make will be made on one of these vehicles, which will help us deliver our green objectives," she told delegates. "We aren't the experts in biogas, but what we do want to do as a business is make sure we grow successfully, but in the right way and in the most sustainable way."

CCE is already trialling biomethane on one of its trucks, a 21-tonne vehicle, which was on display at the show. These 'local' lorries deliver drinks to smaller operations such as town schools and hospitals.

To aid the trial, the company has built a special refuelling station in Enfield, Greater London and is sourcing the biogas from a landfill site in Surrey. Manning said she was "very pleased" with the results so far.

Manning added that long-term, CCE was looking to target its 44-tonne truck fleet, which is mainly used to transport products around on a mass scale.

She said: "At the moment we are using diesel and natural gas, but we believe there is an opportunity to use biogas as that secondary gas and there are 15-20% savings [to be achieved] around that."

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