Our commitment to World Environment Day and to #BeatAirPollution : Andy Boland, Addison Lee Group CEO

You may be aware that today is World Environment Day (WED) – the United Nations day for encouraging worldwide awareness and action to protect our environment – and this year, people and organisations around the world are taking action to #BeatAirPollution.

Air pollution causes more than 30,000 premature deaths in the UK each year, and more than 7 million worldwide. In addition, the pollutants which damage our health are often the same as those that drive climate change. This means that cleaner air is a win both for global health, and for tackling global warming.

We all have a part to play in beating air pollution and addressing climate change. As an organisation that helps keep London moving, day-in, day-out, Addison Lee Group (ALG) recognises its responsibilities in helping improve air quality in the capital and other cities in which it operates.

THE GREENER FUTURE PROGRAMME TO HELP REDUCE THE CAPITAL’S AIR POLLUTION

We’ve already invested in around £100m worth of new low-emission vehicles to ensure that all our London cars meet the city’s exacting Ultra Low Emission standards. These new vehicles play a part in helping with the Mayor’s mission to improve the capital’s air quality, protecting health in the communities where we work, and producing less of the heat-trapping gases which cause climate change. Various sustainability initiatives have seen us reduce emissions in the UK by 1.2 million metric tons of CO², cut 20,000 kilograms of NOx, and save over 7 million litres of fuel every single year.  We also recently announced a partnership with Audi to introduce 5 all-electric E-tron SUVs into our Tristar fleet, and even added some green touches to our app for World Environment Day.

However, we recognise that we still need to do more. Earlier this year, we unveiled our Greener Future Programme  , a partnership with our customers and drivers to improve the environment in our host cities and beyond. The first initiative in this programme was to make all our all our passenger and courier journeys carbon neutral. Partnering with climate and development experts ClimateCare, we’re supporting leading carbon offset projects which cut emissions and improve lives around the world.

CARBON OFFSET PROJECTS TO HELP GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT

As the theme of this year’s World Environment Day is #BeatAirPollution, I wanted to draw attention to one of the projects we’re supporting – the BURN stoves clean cooking project, which is revolutionising home energy use and its impact on air quality in Kenya.

Most home cooking in Kenya is still done on open fires or inefficient stoves, exposing families to harmful air pollution inside their own homes and contributing to climate change.  The BURN stoves project manufactures a cleaner, highly efficient cookstove in a local, solar-powered factory – cutting emissions and helping to prevent the damaging health effects of indoor air pollution, which range from eye irritation to life-threatening illnesses such as heart disease and lung cancer. The results are remarkable, with 80% of new stove owners reporting that their quality of life has ‘improved very much’.

It’s not just air quality the BURN stoves are helping improve; the provision of high-quality jobs at the BURN factory, which provides employment for 100 skilled workers at its factory in Kenya, is improving quality of life too.

Addison Lee Group and our partners are providing funding for BURN and other projects helping to improve the environment around the world, which I look forward to sharing with you in the coming months. We are proud that whenever you travel with us, your carbon neutral journeys will be helping to #BeatAirPollution and improve quality of life through projects like BURN stoves. We look forward to working with passengers and partners to improve the environment for this and future generations.

Yours

Andy Boland, CEO