Clean Fleet Collaboration: Central Kootenay and Nelson
The Regional District of Central Kootenay (Central Kootenay) and the City of Nelson (Nelson) have joined forces to reduce GHG emissions from their fleets. Ramona Mattix of Central Kootenay explained, “Because our fleet size is limited and the way that E3 Fleet is marketed, it made more sense for us to go in together.”
Central Kootenay and Nelson are at the beginning of the E3 process, which involves filling in and submitting spreadsheets. They are already seeing opportunities to reduce costs by working together.
Advice from E3 Fleet
“The primary objective of going to E3 Fleet for us was really about getting guidance and suggestions on how to lower our fleet emissions,” explained Ramona. “It could be a hybrid car, switching to biofuels, upgrading older vehicles, idling reduction, purchasing different kinds of pumper trucks – we just want to reduce our emissions.”
Opportunities
Both Central Kootenay and Nelson have signed on to the Climate Action Charter. Examining their fleet performance and emissions with help from E3 fleet was a good place to start taking action.
Ramona explianed, “We don’t have a fleet manager. We have a guy that books cars off the side of his desk." She continued, "In starting this process with E3, we have noticed that there appears to be some duplication of efforts between us and Nelson.”
She stated that more research and analysis needs to be done, but at this point the local school district and Nelson both have garages that do fleet maintenance while Central Kootenay contracts maintenance to the private sector. In working together, Ramona realized there may be some ways to streamline these operations. “We have noticed some cost saving opportunities.”
Barriers
“The biggest hurdle for us has been gathering the information itself,” explained Ramona. “We don't keep a lot of the information electronically so we need to go through a lot of files by hand. It is a very slow process, but we are getting it done over time.”
Please follow the links to Fuel Efficient Vehicle Purchasing Strategy, Using Low Carbon Fuels and Fleet Idling Reduction for more information on these related topics.
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