Amongst the most concerning environmental contributors in France, air pollution is ranked third according to the Barometer published by ADEME. Even if the threat is invisible, the fact remains that its effects on health and the environment are not to be underestimated. Road traffic and more, particularly in urban areas, are the primary cause of this.
In order to reduce its carbon footprint and environmental impact, Safetykleen France has for several years made it a business goal to regularly renew its vehicle fleet in order to reduce emissions and increase reliance on renewable energies.
Similar to London’s low-emission zone and others in the UK cities of Bath, Birmingham and Portsmouth, the French low-emission mobility zones (ZFE-m) were created to protect the inhabitants of French cities where air pollution is significant. To date, these regulations cover Paris, Greater Paris, Grenoble, Lyon, Strasbourg, Nice, Montpellier, Toulouse, Aix-Marseille, Toulon and Rouen.
Inside a ZFE-m, only vehicles that produce minimal air pollution are allowed to operate without charge. In order to distinguish vehicles according to their level of atmospheric pollutant emissions, a Crit’Air sticker (Air Quality Certificate) is affixed to the windshield.
Six numbered categories ranging from 0 (the least polluting) to 5 (the most polluting) exist
The 110-strong fleet of trucks that the French Team’s Parts Cleaning Experts use to deliver our services to customers across the country are regularly renewed to ensure they meet Crit’Air 0, 1 and 2 and Euro 6 standards, and there’s also an ongoing strategy in place to replace all the light vehicles used by our Sales Team with hybrid vehicles to further reduce emissions.
This constant renewal allows us to reduce the CO 2 emissions of our entire vehicle fleet year on year and to comply with regulations, even in areas where it is not yet implemented.
David Rambert, Director of Operations at Safetykleen France/Belgium
Environmental excellence is one of the major challenges for the City of Paris, particularly with the organization of the Paris Olympic Games in 2024, the objective of which is to make a positive contribution to the climate. This is why all the vehicle fleets of companies in the Paris area must include so-called “clean” vehicles.
This issue also echoes the LOM (Orientation Law of Mobility) which stipulates that by 1 st January 2022, corporate fleets meet certain criteria will predict at least 10% of fleet renewal low emission vehicles (less than 60 g / km of CO 2 ).
And so, now, working with Fraikin, the European leader in the rental of industrial vehicles, Safetykleen has taken the plunge to extend its fleet of vehicles with new ones running on natural gas.
“The energy transition is a strategic subject for Fraikin and for the Île-de-France region”, declares Philippe Verhague, Île-de-France Regional Director of Fraikin.
The next step? Extend NGV to our entire fleet of vehicles to drive even “cleaner”!
The request of our client, the City of Paris, to provide our services with less polluting vehicles was a real opportunity for Safetykleen to develop its range of vehicles. Natural gas vehicles (NGV) have been the best compromise after study between range and payload, while having a reduced environmental footprint.
David Rambert