Scania Australia has won the 2021 Heavy Vehicle Industry Australia (HVIA) Community Leadership Award for its Sustainability programme implemented at its Prestons, NSW branch.
A team at Scania’s company-owned sales and service branch at Prestons was inspired to investigate and implement innovative ways that employees on site could contribute to lowering energy consumption and reducing or recycling waste.
Rebecca Childs devised and led the sustainability programme at Prestons after Scania held a global stop-work across its world-wide operations to discuss sustainability, and brainstorm ways the company could improve its environmental performance.
“Our sustainability project started in 2019, by installing LED lighting,” said Childs.
“Further goals were to reduce landfill, responsibly dispose of plastics and commercial waste via energy recovery, minimise output of packaging, reconfigure resources available to us and to save water and reduce electricity and gas usage to a minimum.”
The outcomes from the programme included a reduced electricity consumption by 46 per cent (so far this year) compared with the same period in 2017 – estimated at around 157,000 kW/h of energy savings.
The success of the programme means it will now be implemented at the seven other existing Scania company-owned branches across Australian capital cities.
Sean Corby, regional executive manager for Scania NSW and Victoria, who believes the changes can be implemented by all workshops across the transport industry, was delighted with the accolade.
“We are delighted to accept this award and thank the judges at the HVIA for recognising these tangible and important efforts that have been made by the team at Prestons,” said Corby.
Globally, Scania’s company-wide 50 per cent CO2 reduction in industrial and commercial operations target is set for 2025 and is aligned with the Science Based Targets initiative.