Gatwick Airport has cut carbon emissions from its diesel vehicles by 90 per cent by swapping the fuel for treated waste vegetable oil.
Hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO) is a low-carbon biofuel made from plant waste, oils and fats, making it a more sustainable alternative to diesel.
All 300 diesel vehicles, which make up 85 per cent of Gatwick’s fleet, have made the switch to the fuel - saving more than 950 tonnes of carbon emissions each year.
Once the fleet is retired, they will then be replaced by electric vehicles as part of the airport’s goal to become net zero by 2030.
An extensive six-month trial concluded that the fuel had no impact on the performance of the vehicles, meaning the airport’s fire engines still have the capability to respond to callouts anywhere on the airfield within three minutes.
George Treadwell, a crew manager at Gatwick’s Fire and Rescue Service, said: “What’s really important to me, the crews and the fire station is we can deploy anywhere across the airfield, have that performance and reliability and when we had the transition and testing from diesel to HVO we didn’t notice any performance difference at all between the two.
“We have a lot of big vehicles burning fuel but what is important to me is being able to help the environment and help the area we are working and living in.”
Steve Kelso, head of engineering at Gatwick Airport, said: “The transition to HVO is the first step towards us achieving our zero emission goal of 2030. HVO is a sustainably sourced fuel and is a drop-in replacement for diesel - a very easy transition.
“It is just the first step, so the end goal will be to transition to electric or zero-emission vehicles, but HVO is a readily available replacement for diesel.”
Mr Kelso said there are three main steps for the airport in its task of becoming net zero; decarbonising heat by moving away from boilers to heat pumps, reducing emissions from chillers and transitioning its fleet of vehicles to more sustainable fuels.
The airport will invest £250 million into replacing all vehicles, gas boilers and refrigerants with low-carbon alternatives to meet its net zero goal.
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