South Shields' Asda supermarket goes green to help customers cope with coronavirus lockdown

Asda has introduced electric vehicles at its South Shields store to increase capacity across its online delivery and Click and Collect services.

The vehicles can be charged on site and will be used to take goods from the store to Click and Collect lockers – freeing up home shopping vans to deliver more orders to customers.

The move means 48 stores across the country will be able to increase the number of potential Click and Collect slots they collectively offer from over 7,000 per week to more than 34,000.

Fully road legal, the vehicles can travel up to 65km in a single charge and will cover between 6km and 8km per day. They have been built by Danish manufacturer Garia and weigh just 900kg.

The supermarket also has seven additional hybrid vehicles in use, to assist in stores where they will be required to travel longer distances to Click and Collect lockers.

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Emma Ford, Senior Director of Operations Development for Online Grocery at Asda, said: “We are always looking for ways to innovate in areas where customers care, while still providing an excellent customer experience.

“These vehicles allow us to do this by increasing capacity for Click and Collect customers and enabling us to understand how we can better utilise electric vehicles across our fleet.”

“This is just one of many ways Asda is looking to improve sustainability in stores and has already cut energy usage by 20%. Currently, the retailer uses the same amount of electricity as it did in 2005, despite its estate being 200% bigger.”

Asda has also committed to reduce emissions by 50% by 2025 and is working with suppliers on sharing ideas and solutions to tackle climate change and food waste.

The firm is committed to meeting the target to remove 1 billion tonnes of emissions globally as part of Project Gigaton and has already seen 179 suppliers sign up to this commitment, saving 29 million metric tonnes of emissions.

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