Lidl’s goal by 2025 is to achieve a 40% share of trucks with alternative drive within its fleet
Reducing emissions is one of the important ways to protect the environment, while road transport has great potential. One of the pioneers in the field of ecological logistics in Slovakia is the Lidl chain, which has been using trucks with an alternative drive for the third year. Trucks with CNG, LNG or hybrid drive currently make up 15% of the vehicle fleet used by Lidl. The retail chain wants to further increase this share, new ecological vehicles will be added to its fleet this year.
“In the course of 2021, we plan to exceed the limit of 20% of trucks with an alternative drive, by 2025 we are even planning a 40% share. Vehicles that produce almost no emissions supply stores in all corners of Slovakia with goods. Along with efficient logistics planning, maximum utilization of trucks and their use also for reverse logistics from stores to central warehouses, vehicles with an alternative drive are the basis of our green logistics concept. In all our activities, we try to be as environmentally friendly as possible,” explained Miroslav Seifert, head of logistics at Lidl Slovak Republic.
The discount chain has been trying to reduce its own carbon footprint for a long time. In all buildings belonging to the company Lidl Slovak Republic, energy from renewable sources, from the production of hydroelectric power plants, is used exclusively. Seven stores have photovoltaic panels installed on their roofs to produce electricity directly from sunlight. In the course of the past years, 137,350 kWh were produced in this way, which translates into more than 40 tons of CO2 emissions that were not released into the atmosphere. Lidl has also replaced the old lighting in all its stores with LED technology, focuses on energy-efficient appliances, has one of the most ecological logistics centers in Europe and has successfully implemented an energy management system according to the ISO 50001 standard. Lidl is also installing heat pumps that use energy in its new stores from the surrounding environment and uses natural refrigerants instead of synthetic refrigerants, which have a lower value of the Global Warming Potential (GWP) index. Thanks to this, the discounter passed as one of the first companies in Slovakia in the environmental audit of the ENVI-PAK organization and received a certificate for responsible organizations