London’s wholesale markets have a new sustainable transport system available to them, in the form of lowhub.
Traders delivering into the capital are working towards the green distribution aims of London, in keeping with the Mayor’s Climate Change Action Plan, for a 20 per cent reduction in CO2 by 2015. lowhub, which is part of a larger sustainable solutions organisation called Chi (London) Ltd, follows the Chi philosophy of “delivering sustainable solutions that tackle issues such as carbon emissions in a cost-efficient way, rather than just talking about them,” said Kevin Tullett, who runs the company’s office in New Covent Garden Flower Market.
lowhub uses its Nine Elms location as the central point for a small fleet of vans, which run on biodiesel or electricity. The company uses biodiesel from locally sourced, used cooking oil, which is collected from London restaurants whilst out on deliveries.
The vans, which have two speeds, “forward and reverse”, according to Tullett, started delivering fresh produce around London in September last year, and four months down the line, a team of four drivers is making roughly 15 drops a day on behalf of traders at New Covent Garden and Borough markets.
“lowhub offers an environment-friendly delivery service, without compromising quality or efficiency. Not only can lowhub offer a green solution, in many instances we offer a delivery service to customers which was not available before,” Tullett told freshinfo.
“We’re looking to work with people who appreciate what we are trying to achieve, and also buy into what our sustainable green credentials can do for them.
“We’d like to have a distribution hub in each of the wholesale markets in London, and we are set up to do that already. Our whole focus is consolidation. The lowhub strategy asks suppliers to play a role in developing the pricing scheme, encouraging people to fill the van and group deliveries together to increase system efficiency and lower the per trader cost.”
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