Purpose

The proposal is to change the
primary fuel type for the council vehicles from standard diesel to
HVO fuel and approve the potential increase of spend on
fuel.

Decision

Cabinet agreed the following:
 
1. 
To approve the key decision to change TDC’s primary fuel type
from standard diesel to Hydrotreated
Vegetable Oil fuel;
 
2. 
To note the maximum additional cost per annum of adopting the use
of HVO and that as identified in the Financial Implications
section, this approach will also offer financial savings to the
vehicle replacement programme which will offset the additional cost
of HVO fuel;
 
3. 
That, where it is not possible to replace an end of life combustion
engined vehicle with an electric
equivalent, the latest and most efficient new combustion
engined vehicle will be selected as a
replacement and will be powered by HVO fuel. Note that any future
vehicles purchase over £250k will still be the subject of a
future Cabinet decision report in line with the key decision
threshold.

Reasons for the decision

The change will reduce the carbon produced by
TDCs fleet by over 90%. The fleet is TDCs largest carbon producer
(40%). This could equate to 1300 tonnes of carbon saved.

Alternative options considered

To not make the change or to do it for only
selected vehicles. It was agreed that the potential increase cost
represented the best value in regards to the amount of carbon
reduction.