SES Water provides employees with electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles through company car scheme

22/04/2021

On this year’s Earth Day, SES Water has announced all of its new company cars will be either electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles as part of the water industry’s Public Interest Commitment to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2030.

The Company Car Scheme will see qualifying employees provided with leased electric vehicles or plug-in hybrids when they either join the scheme for the first time or when their vehicle is next replaced. 

Employees will also be provided with home-charging facilities and all of the Company’s treatment works and Redhill Head Office already have vehicle charging points in place.  

For those employees choosing to take a car allowance rather than a vehicle, from 1 April 2025 they will be required to move to a vehicle with a CO₂ emission value of 50g/km or less and from 2030 employees will not be eligible for the scheme at all if they drive a vehicle with an emission value above this limit.

SES Water Energy and Carbon Manager, Henrietta Stock, said: “We are committed to minimising the impact our essential operations have on the environment and our communities, which is why this scheme is such an important step for us to take and we believe we are one of the first in the industry to do this. Each electric car in our fleet will help save around 2-3 tonnes of CO₂e per year as well as reducing the impact on local air quality.”

Today’s announcement builds on the Company’s initial trial, in partnership with The Drax Group, which has seen it replace 12 of its vans with fully electric models, as well as investing in 42 new charging points across its sites.

Each day SES Water uses enough electricity to power 13,000 homes, however since 2018 100 per cent of its electricity comes from renewable resources – the equivalent of taking 4,000 cars off the road. The Company has solar panels at six of its sites, which last year generated just over 266,000 kWh of electricity, enough to power more than 65 houses per year.