Kevin Tomlinson and Gary Bulley of Bullwell Trailer Solutions

Carbon reduction is an intrinsic business policy for independently owned Bullwell Trailer Solutions, which in the past 12 months has invested nearly £1.5 million in ensuring green policies remain at the top of its agenda.

Gary Bulley, managing director at Bullwell discusses the potential for operators to clean up their fleets whilst saving money and improving brand reputation.

“Last year (2011) Bullwell Trailer Solutions experienced nearly a 20 per cent increase in turnover, much of which can be attributed to the success of our green policies. Carbon reduction is an intrinsic business policy for Bullwell, but more than that our environmental improvements over the last 12 months are helping us to respond to the mandatory CO2 reductions outlined by the government.

“Whilst many companies are looking to improve the way in which their vehicles are fuelled and the possibility of electric vans in the future, Bullwell has looked at the way in which we manage our supply chains, the way we travel and finding alternatives to needing to travel at all; a difficult task you might say when we operate in the transport and freight industry so the alternative is ensuring those vehicles which emit the lowest CO2 emissions cover the most miles.

“Bullwell specialises in maintaining and repairing over 5,000 trailers, and from the outset when we became established in early 2006, our entire philosophy has been based on ensuring the HGVs, vans and trailers we maintain undergo minimal movement. We have 50 highly-skilled mobile engineers located across the UK, which reduces the carbon emissions incurred from a typical trailer service journey by 95 per cent. Typically HGVs use 100 litres of fuel for six return journeys and produce 266kg of carbon dioxide, whereas our mobile service will use less than five litres, thereby creating only 13kg of carbon dioxide. On top of the environmental benefits, the cost saving of having a mobile operation is circa £2,000 for a typical fleet of 300 trailers.

“Additionally, and again in a bid to reduce movement of HGVs, we are anticipating a reduction of circa 1,776,000kgs of carbon dioxide emissions per year following the installation of our on-site ATF facility, which was launched in July. The carbon dioxide saving is based on an average return journey of 40 miles to the previous VOSA centre in Garrets Green from Bullwell’s Lichfield headquarters, where a HGV would use 33.3 litres of fuel and produce 88.7kgs of carbon dioxide emissions.

The installation of our ATF represented an investment of £173,000, but we anticipate savings of £60,000 per annum across the 5,000 strong fleet of HGVs that are serviced and maintained by the company, making this investment not only environmentally rewarding but financially beneficial too.

“In this industry there is no escaping the fact that our vehicles will cover many miles each year but to combat the effect this has on the environment we have ensured that all our vehicles will meet the Euro 5 emissions standard, which will become mandatory in 2012. To stay ahead of the game we are investing £980,000 into 28 new vans, each of which was kitted out with £15,000 worth of apparatus, in a bid to increase efficiency whilst significantly reducing CO2 emissions per kilometre travelled.

“Moving away from minimising movement of HGVs it is also important to consider less direct ways of how we can ensure the transport industry is addressing greenhouse gasses. Reducing paper usage amongst our engineers has been at the forefront of decisions over the past few years. In light of this we invested £250,000 into improving our PDA system, which has now eradicated all paper useage amongst the company’s engineers. The PDA is used to create electronic service records; removing the need to print invoices, reports and transport compliance audits.

“We are extremely proud that Bullwell is the premier company in the trailer maintenance industry with 100 per cent of our engineers using paperless technology. The unique ‘green’ PDA system was first introduced to the company’s engineers three years ago and during this time has undergone a number of upgrades to get to this latest stage. Our PDA system represents a significant investment but it has been an important move forward and we are reaping the rewards financially, productively and of course, environmentally.

“Reducing movement of the HGV trailers we maintain creates the most practical and economical solution for trailer repairs, maintenance and testing, whilst vastly reducing our carbon footprint and that of our customers. Adapting and developing new green policies should be a ‘must’ for any business. Focussing on carbon reduction will bring its own savings, as whichever way you look at it carbon costs.”