Green Steps provides Safetell with carbon reduction expertise

Client profile

Industry: Security system supplier

Types of vehicles: Diesel 3.5 tonne vans

Fleet size: 17

The challenge: lack of in-house expertise and maxed-out staff

Safetell had already made a considerable investment in improving their sustainability performance through the ISO standards and the Achilles carbon footprint reporting programme. However, much of this was not integrated into the business and instead sat quite separate from day-to-day operations.

As regulations and customer requirements become more demanding, the team recognised that this will need to change or that they’ll struggle to demonstrate the necessary improvements. It is also a missed opportunity to use sustainable practices to improve customer success, lower operational costs and streamline operations.

Safetell has set a target to reduce emissions by 25% by 2032. However, there was insufficient internal expertise to identify the operational efficiencies required to make progress towards this target, and no team member had the capacity to drive any sustainability efforts forward.

The solution: taking the time
to understand Safetell’s
unique challenges

Safetell engaged Green Steps to provide them with decarbonisation expertise. Lindsey Hall, Green Steps’ sustainability consultant, initially met with core members of the management team to qualify Safetell’s greatest impacts. This also served as a first touchpoint to increase internal engagement with the resulting carbon reduction strategy.

Once the areas of greatest impact had been identified, Lindsey worked with the team and reviewed vehicle telematics data to understand current performance and establish a baseline to compare improvements against. The company already had headline GHG data through its carbon footprint reporting, but a more granular understanding of the current operational performance of the company was required to know what reductions could realistically be achieved and in what timeframe.

Having spent the time to fully understand the business, Lindsey created a sustainability policy to reflect Safetell’s unique challenges, operational capabilities and aspirations with regards to its environmental and social impacts.

Lindsey then created a carbon reduction strategy; a one-year action plan to achieve the goals established in the policy. Since the emissions from the commercial fleet represented 86% of total scope 1 emissions and 71% of total organisational GHG emissions, the primary focus for the first year’s decarbonisation strategy centred around the vehicle fleet of diesel vans.

The decarbonisation plan identified the person responsible for each action, together with achievable timescales for completion, to reach the short-term targets that will take the company on a linear path towards its carbon reduction goal of a 25% reduction in emissions.

The results: clear, simple
and practical actions

Having reviewed Masternaut telematics data for the fleet, Lindsey identified several key areas where improvements could be made to reduce fuel consumption and associated vehicle exhaust emissions. These were based around:

Safe and eco-driving behaviour

Across the fleet, a wide range of driving styles was exhibited by Safetell’s technicians, resulting in a variance of observed fuel efficiency between the best and poorest-performing drivers. These driving indicators were specifically:

Harsh braking
Harsh acceleration
Excessive speeding
Harsh cornering

With her extensive experience in sustainable fleet practices and driver engagement, Lindsey proposed a number of actions that could be taken to improve driver performance in all of these areas. This will reduce operating costs by lowering fuel consumption, reduce associated carbon emissions, improve road safety and benefit Safetell’s corporate reputation by improving driver courtesy and safety on the road.

Excessive idling

An idling diesel van emits 1.7kg of CO2 per hour, along with pollutants that contribute to ground-level ozone, smog and respiratory health problems. Lindsey identified that the fleet’s true idling rates were higher than industry benchmarks, and there was a high incidence of idling events over 5 minutes in duration. She set a number of related targets to tackle this operational inefficiency, together with the actions that would ensure these targets were met.

Fleet optimisation

In addition, the decarbonisation plan included actions related to improving the following areas of fleet operations:

Dispatch efficiency
Fuel-efficient routing
Optimising vehicle stock levels
Preventative maintenance
Transitioning to electric vehicles

Next steps

Safetell has now engaged Green Steps to project manage the decarbonisation strategy and deliver the majority of the associated actions. Since the internal team has insufficient capacity to take this work on, this will guarantee that the sustainability project remains on target.

Driver training is a core component of the short term sustainability strategy, and Lindsey will develop an eco-driver training module to complement their existing staff induction and continuous development programme, tailored to Safetell’s unique challenges and operating requirements.

Another core part of her work will revolve around staff engagement. For the continued success of the programme and to maximise the benefits that it can bring, Lindsey will be working to ensure that everyone understands the value and relevance of the sustainability measures and starts to integrate these efficiencies in their day-to-day operations.

In her capacity as a freelance sustainability consultant to Safetell, Lindsey will:

Ensure that all parties have the assistance they need to complete their actions
Ensure that all actions are completed according to the agreed deadlines
Virtually attend any meetings with internal/external stakeholders that cover topics related to their sustainability and carbon reduction programme
Ensure the integrity of future GHG submissions, in accordance with ISO 14061
Assist with responding to any RFPs or sales proposals that require information regarding their sustainability performance or carbon reporting programmes

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“Lindsey has supported our business and provided the missing expertise in carbon emissions we needed to get on track with our sustainability objectives”

Tillie Berry, Marketing Manager, Safetell

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