Firms make ‘green’ commitments at launch of London Climate Action Week

The Mayor of London’s inaugural London Climate Action Week gets under way today, with four companies making ambitious new commitments on clean energy and transport.

APCOA Parking Group and shopping centre owner intu have joined The Climate Group’s EV100 initiative, committing to install EV charging infrastructure through the 2020s to help accelerate the transition to electric transport.

Sportswear retailer JD Sports Fashion and property investor Derwent London have committed to source 100% renewable electricity by joining RE100 – the global corporate leadership initiative toward zero carbon grids, led by The Climate Group in partnership with CDP.

Helen Clarkson, CEO at The Climate Group, said: “It’s exciting to see businesses leading by example on clean transport and energy in London and beyond – we need to act fast to reduce emissions at the speed needed to limit global warming to 1.5-degrees.”

APCOA Parking Group manages approximately 1.4 million individual parking spaces at more than 9,000 locations across 13 European countries.

The Group’s EV100 commitment will commence in the UK and Ireland, before rolling out to all other countries. In the UK, the company has committed to switching its mopeds, cars, vans and buses to electric by 2030. The company will also install charging infrastructure over the same timeframe, to encourage EV uptake by its customers and 5,000 employees.

Kim Challis, regional managing director, APCOA Parking (UK & Ireland) said: “We have already re-engineered our travel policy to incentivise our staff to migrate to electric vehicles and, in addition, we are working with our clients to install electric charging points across the country. To date we have installed circa 50 charging points at our locations across the South of England, with a further 40 planned by end of 2019. Furthermore, we are implementing emissions-based pricing structures, aimed at rewarding customers using electric/hybrid vehicles.”

Intu plans to install more than 80 new charge points at its 14 directly managed UK shopping centers by 2020, while also transitioning its own vehicles to EVs by 2030.

Matthew Roberts, chief executive of intu, said: "35 million people come to an intu center every year, so we want to be able to give more customers the opportunity to charge their cars if they choose to drive to us, at the same time as improving local air quality by promoting all forms of sustainable transport."

Derwent London has set a RE100 goal to source 100% renewable electricity by 2020 and JD Sports plans to reach its RE100 goal of using 100% renewable electricity globally by 2025 (including Europe by 2022).