'Together towards our ambition of net zero emissions'

Together with Mars, logistics service provider Nabuurs has taken a big step toward a sustainable future. The company recently purchased two Volvo FH Electric trucks for the daily trips from the Mars factory to their distribution center, in order to reduce CO2 emissions. "This cooperation is an important milestone towards our ambition of net zero emissions by the year 2050," says Luuk Langeveld, Business development manager at Nabuurs. "A year and a half ago, Mars expressed its desire to achieve sustainable transport. That matched our objectives and so the initiative arose to work together on this."

Family-owned Nabuurs is a logistics service provider for FMCG in Food, Personal Care, Retail and Hospitality. With approximately 100 employees, 360 vehicles and 23 branches, Nabuurs' course is that of sustainable logistics. Mars, also a family business, makes chocolate products, pet food and meals from well-known brands and invests a billion dollars in climate measures worldwide.

Testing first

"We decided to start renting an electric truck rather than purchasing one. We already had some experience with electric driving in the inner cities, but not outside. So we first wanted to experience what you might run into when you want to run a normal logistics operation. It gave us the opportunity to take a good look at what the routes do with, for example, range and at what times and locations to integrate the charging moments into the trip planning. We kept track of all the data for a few weeks in order to enter into discussions with Mars from there, so that together we could determine how to make the best use of every kilometer. Our distribution center in Oosterhout, Gelderland, turned out to have enough work to deploy the electric trucks dedicated to Mars. After all, we drive for eight customers in this region and the data collected indicated that, with proper coordination, enough FTLs could drive back and forth daily."

Volvo FH Electric

The two brand new Volvo FH Electric trucks are equipped with six battery packs of ninety kilowatt hours each and an ePTO system for all-electric cooling. This allows these vehicles to deliver top performance with minimal CO2 emissions. "We quickly found out that Volvo Trucks is the best partner to make the switch to an electric fleet. The reliability of these vehicles and the brand's expertise around servicing electric trucks made us decide to purchase two Volvo FH Electric trucks. Together with truck dealer BAS Truck Center, we then put together the right configuration." Because Volvo Trucks was the first manufacturer to market a full range of electric trucks in series production, a lot of experience has been gained in five years, which translates into high reliability. "Since May we have been using these electric trucks and we are extremely satisfied. The drivers report a wonderfully smooth ride and we like the fact that we receive valuable data in Volvo Connect. Think of consumption, the influence of the drivers' driving style, how the range is doing and how much is being regenerated. This data is very useful for good long-term analysis."

Charging points

The distribution center in Oosterhout does not have its own charging station; how does Nabuurs solve this? "There is a charging station at Mars that we are allowed to use and next to us is a distribution center with one of the largest charging plazas in the region.   

What we are discovering is that you can still get by with a few electric trucks. But as the fleet grows, the power supply will have to grow with it. Right now we are preparing for that. Because although there are currently no regulations that mandate electric driving in our work, we don't want to wait for the time when there is. We already want to do our bit for a fossil-free future with the lowest possible CO2 emissions."

Take action now

The advice is not to wait any longer to think about sustainability, but to make a fleet plan now and take action. Volvo Trucks has a lot of experience and knowledge that it is happy to use to think along with carriers and warehouses without any obligation. They can also point them in the right direction within their network, for example in the area of loading infrastructure.