Parcel delivery firm DPD has confirmed that all future parcel deliveries in Oxford will now be made by electric vehicles.
From today (July 27), Oxford will become DPD’s first all-electric city, with nine further ‘green cities’ in the UK to be confirmed later in the year.
The move is part of a wider initiative that will see DPD go fully electric in 25 cities by 2025, backed by a £111m (US$154m) investment in electric vehicles. The initiative will deliver 42,000 tonnes of CO2 savings for the UK, the equivalent of planting 170,000 trees.
All Oxford parcel deliveries will be made from DPD’s Bicester eco-depot. The new 5,574m2 hub at Symmetry Park is DPD’s first to achieve net zero carbon in construction, as regulated by the UK Green Building Council (UKGBC). The depot has a fleet of 40 electric vehicles, delivering more than 15,000 parcels a week.
The new facility was officially opened in June 2021 by double Olympic and nine times world champion track cyclist Victoria Pendleton, and is the most sustainable facility in DPD’s UK network. Once fully operational, the depot could create up to 250 new jobs.
DPD head of corporate social responsibility Olly Craughan said, “This is a landmark day for us. To be able to say we can now deliver to a city the size of Oxford, using only electric vehicles, is a huge leap forward not only us but for the sector. We are on track to repeat this in nine more cities this year. We’ve been working with electric vehicles for the past three years and we have learned a lot in that time. As well as investing in the vehicles themselves, we’ve created a whole new smart delivery system around them, including the charging infrastructure.
“Bicester is the greenest and most sustainable facility in our UK network, and it is right that we start the rollout of our 25 green cities here, at a time when Oxford itself is taking a huge step with the Zero Emission Zone pilot due to be launched later this year. Our whole approach to sustainability is about joining up the dots beyond just buying electric vehicles. And that means working with others on initiatives like city center emissions schemes and measuring air quality. With this approach, we will be helping reduce emissions one city center at a time, starting with Oxford.”