Anglian Water has introduced 10 new electric vans to its fleet as part of its strategy to reduce fleet emissions and achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.

The company currently spends more than £4.5m on diesel every year, with vans covering 22 million miles annually.

The new Nissan e-NV200s can travel 100 miles before they need recharging, so will be used for Anglian Water employees who conduct more localised visits.

The company has installed electric charging stations across a number of its sites to facilitate recharging. With less maintenance and cleaner carbon footprints, the new vans will provide an opportunity for the company to cut its energy usage and become even more efficient.

Stewart Lightbody, head of fleet Services at Anglian Water, (pictured) said: "Reducing both fleet emissions and our carbon footprint are key for us. We were one of the first companies to sign up to the Clean Van Commitment which has been created by Global Action Plan, to speed up the switch to zero emissions vans. Our first 10 vans are another key step forward towards our ambition to be completely carbon neutral by 2050 and we are excited to see how quickly we might be able to expand their use in our fleet."

Stewart Lightbody wins 2019 Fleet News Award for Fleet Manager of the Year.

Air pollution is a major public issue with 44 cities in the UK having air pollution that exceeds the World Health Organisation guidelines. There are four million vans on the road but only 4,400 of them are electric.

Recent research demonstrates that pollution from older diesel vans has a significant impact on health, costing the NHS and society an additional £2.2 billion per annum. This problem is only set to increase as vans are the fastest growing vehicle type in the UK. Vans contribute 75 billion miles driven each year, a staggering 30% of the UK's road transport emissions, and cost three times more per vehicle to the UK's health than cars.

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