Transport

The issue

The movement of goods from manufacturer to warehousing to retail shops generates carbon dioxide, a direct contributor to climate change. National and local governments, communities and individuals are all beginning to address the challenge of climate change by altering the way they do things to reduce their "Carbon Footprint". Business also has a role to play, including the retail sector, and we continue to take an active part in reducing our impact within our supply chain distribution systems. More detail can be found in the downloadable policies section on the right.

What we're doing

We're committed to reducing the amount of carbon dioxide produced from transport operations relating to our business. For many years we've been planning the deliveries to our shops to reduce the kilometres travelled, to reduce the fuel used and to increase the amount of product we carry per load. More detail can be found in the downloadable position statements section on the right.

Current initiatives

During 2008/09 we've further reduced our carbon dioxide emissions and the total kilometres travelled by road through a series of intitiatives, including the continued use of new vehicle types for our store delivery and trunking fleet. Examples include:

Double-deck trailer fleet

During 2008/09 we expanded our use of double deck trailers, with 152 of these trailers now operating on our delivery routes from our central warehouses in Nottingham to our 17 regional distribution centres. We have reduced the overall weight of the additional trailers by employing a fixed floor design which removes the weight of the hydraulic floor lifting system, currently used on our existing vehicles. This hydraulic system is now built into the warehouse loading dock system. Our double deck trailers enable us to make two journeys rather than the three we would have made using our standard vehicles.

Wagon and drag

We continue to use 12 "Wagon and Drag" vehicles, made up of a rigid vehicle and a box trailer. This allows us to move more products per journey than when using a standard store delivery vehicle, while also enabling us to deliver to our shops with limited delivery access.

Backloading

We are also continuing our policy of 'backloading' - using vehicles to deliver products to shops, and then to collect bulk products destined for our warehouse from our suppliers on the return journey. We still manage directly the scheduling of our backloading operations, with our efforts now saving the equivalent of around 2.4 million kilometres of travel on UK roads (around 1,800 tonnes of carbon) each year. More detail can be found in the downloadable further information section on the right.

Reducing carbon dioxide emissions in Scotland

We have continued our collaboration with JBT, a leading local road haulage services company based in the north of Scotland. More details can be found in the downloadable further information section on the right.

The future

During the last quarter of 2008/09 the Boots UK Logistics team commenced design work on an innovative store delivery vehicle which aims to reduce the number of kilometres travelled when delivering goods to our shops. The new vehicle design, a 10 metre long by 4.1 metre high "Multi-deck Urban Delivery" (MUD) trailer, delivers around 83% more wheeled cages compared to a standard 10 metre store delivery rigid vehicle.

This additional capacity within the same overall length allows the combining of delivery routes which would have previously been made by two 10 metre rigid vehicles. In 2009/10 we will be assessing the operational effectiveness of the new vehicle and determining which delivery routes it could be used on.