Woolworths New Zealand has committed to delivering greener groceries to online customers, aiming to transition 100 percent of its home delivery trucks to electric-powered by 2030.
This announcement comes as the retailer releases its 2023 Sustainability Wrap, the first commitment of its kind for a New Zealand supermarket.
The move will add approximately 300 trucks to the country’s electric vehicle fleet over the next seven years. Woolworths New Zealand delivers thousands of online orders to customers daily from Kerikeri to Invercargill.
Woolworths New Zealand Managing Director Spencer Sonn said that it’s critical for businesses like Woolworths to take a leadership role in switching to lower-emissions vehicles and backing electric options.
“The need for a low carbon future has never been clearer, and we know we need to take action today to ensure we’re leaving a better tomorrow for those coming after us,” said Sonn.
Woolworths New Zealand has one of the country's biggest home delivery truck fleets, and it hopes this will encourage more businesses to look at changing to electric vehicles, too.
“It’s certainly not going to be a simple move, with some of our trucks travelling as far as 300 kilometres in one day, but we’re determined to get to 2030 with a fully electric fleet.”
Woolworths New Zealand took a lot of learnings from its first five EV trucks and will work closely with drivers to ensure its transition is carefully phased over the next seven years and balances practicality with ambition.
The supermarket retailer introduced electric vehicles to its home delivery fleet in 2019 with support from EECA (the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority).
Richard Briggs, Group Manager at EECA, said it was fantastic to see Woolworths New Zealand taking the next step with the ambitious commitment to reach 100 percent electric in their fleet.
Briggs explained that one of the aims of EECA’s funding support is to reduce the risk for businesses investing in the first steps of transitioning to more efficient options and help them feel more confident to make larger investments down the line.
“This is exactly what’s happened here with us supporting Woolworths’ first five electric vehicles and them now setting a much more extensive ambition,” said Briggs.
Woolworths New Zealand has also recently released its 2023 Sustainability Wrap, which details progress against its sustainability commitments for the year ended 30 June 2023. Highlights for the year include reducing the business’ gender pay gap to 1.4 percent, donating more than $12 million of food and funds to local communities, and removing 114 tonnes of virgin plastic from the Own Brand milk range.
The business’s electric ambition is part of a wider Woolworths Group commitment to reduce its overall operational transport emissions by around 60 percent by 2030 compared to today and decommissioned more than 3,000 internal combustion engine vehicles from its company-wide fleet by that time.
