Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust has teamed up with CEVA Logistics and Livett’s Group, to trial a riverboat delivery service, as part of the Trust’s commitment to reduce carbon emissions.
If the pilot is successful, the service will operate on a larger scale, to remove trucks from the capital’s roads, while providing a delivery route into London during the day. The Trust’s three delivery trucks currently travel around 1,500 miles per week. For each truck removed from the road, approximately 708 kg of CO2 could be saved per week.
The project will help Guy’s and St Thomas’ work towards its aim of reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2030, and it supports the Mayor of London’s aim to reduce the number of lorries and vans entering central London in the morning peak by 10% by 2026.
The parcels will then be transported by Absolutely, the final mile delivery partner, on electric cargo bikes to Guy’s Hospital.
The three month trial launched today and will run for three months, delivering essential medical supplies.
This initiative follows an existing green plan which sees cargo bikes transporting blood and tumours for testing between Guy’s Hospital and St Thomas’ Hospital- which replaced vans and motorbikes.
David Lawson, Chief Procurement Officer at Guy’s and St Thomas’, said: “The riverboat pilot forms a key part in our ambition to remove over 40,000 truck deliveries from central London roads each year. We also want to encourage and support other organisations to adopt the use of zero emission delivery models to improve air quality for the communities that we serve.”
Edward Livett, Director of Livett’s Group, said: “We are very excited and proud to be a part of this trial as it is a clear example of positive use of the River Thames, something we are constantly striving for. Livett’s specialise in river logistics and as a Group have assets from Putney down to Gravesend which we are confident will help make this trial an absolute success. We look forward to helping freight back onto the river and proving it to be an environmentally sustainable and safe solution.”
