Green Policies

Our Environmental Policy

Qdell and LHR Express Cars Limited are fully committed to environmental awareness and the need to maintain the highest levels of environmental responsibility within our organisation. We aim through staff awareness and strict environmental management systems to implement and maintain procedures demonstrating dedication to environmental issues. We are working towards the BS EN ISO 14001:2004 accreditation.

In order to achieve this accreditation it is imperative that we incorporate the following into our everyday business policies.

• Regularly assess the environmental effects of our activities
• Training employees in environmental issues
• Minimise the production of wastage
• Minimise energy wastage
• Promote the use of recyclable or renewable materials
• Reduce and/or limit production of pollutants
• Control noise emissions

We are concentrating on the following areas:-

• Fleet management
• Conservation of fossil fuels
• Maximise use of alternative fuels
• Using the best vehicles or each type of journey

Energy

• Best practices in building design and construction
• Lighting, heating, air conditioning and ventilation
• Computer systems and peripherals are to be switched of at the end of the working day to ensure security and reduce energy consumption.
• Only servers, network enabling apparatus and fax machines to remain on at all times.

Purchasing

• Promote the use of environmentally friendly products wherever possible
• Making suppliers aware of our environmental concerns
• Attempting to influence environmental policy of suppliers wherever possible

Petrol Vehicles

Our petrol vehicles are LPG or electric hybrids. Hybrid vehicles as most of you are aware use a combination of two power sources. Electric motors and petrol combustion engines. Batteries are charged to run an electric motor generally most efficient when travelling at low speed or in traffic. When higher speeds or more power is required the petrol engine cuts in.

Biofuel

As the majority of our vehicles are diesel all our diesel engines run on 100% recycled carbon neutral vegetable oil. We have achieved this without contributing to the destruction of rain forests or land used for food cultivation. We provide biodeisel to our drivers that has been refined down to under 1 micron.

Biodiesel is easy to use and requires no engine modification and can be mixed in varying quantities with standard diesel. As vegetable oil is used as a raw material to manufacture biodiesel this reduces the need for the disposal of these oils.

We all understand that crude oil will run out in the future, Biodiesel is 100% renewable and the crops are already being grown in this country, keeping our fuel buying at home, which also helps our trade deficit and creates jobs in the UK.

Biodiesel has better ignition and combustion characteristics due to a high cetane index, which allows the engine to move smoothly. It has excellent lubricity which improves engine wear. It has excellent cleaning properties and high blends will loosen and dissolve accumulated sediment left in diesel fuel tanks.

Biodiesel is non flammable and in contrast to mineral diesel is not explosive. It is non toxic and is a more environmentally friendly fuel to store. Biodiesel emissions show decreased levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and nitrated polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons which have been identified as potential cancer causing compounds.

Biodiesel is free of sulphur and therefore does not produce any sulphur dioxide which is considered to be one of the main causes of acid rain and is carbon neutral.

Biodiesel Blends and Standards

Considerations must be made on where we buy our biodiesel. Primarily our supplies are sourced from the UK, but in the unlikely event of a shortage we also have overseas suppliers that we can call upon. We ensure that we will only buy from countries who are not cutting down trees to plant rape seed fields. We will only buy the best quality biodiesel.

Most of the world uses a system known as the "BD" factor to state the amount of biodiesel in any fuel mix, e.g. 20% biodiesel is labelled B20, pure biodiesel would be known as B100. Using 5% biodiesel with a 95% mineral diesel is fully accepted within the EN590 diesel specification and ….

• No modification required to your vehicle
• Produced from renewable resources
• Better for the environment
• Biodegradable and non toxic
• Better combustion, means a smoother running engine
• Comparable fuel economy, performance and pricing
• Can be mixed with petroleum diesel in any ratio
• Non explosive
• Less wear and tear on engines = less repairs

Qdell Takes the Initiative

We have been told from several reliable sources that we are so far the only private hire company who has been in contact with government bodies or the PCO with regards to alternative fuels and vehicle emissions. Although our competitors might claim to be green we seem to be the only company who actually want to find out the real benefits and are not just going through the motions for appearances sake.

A consultant with both the Energy Savings Trust and BAA has put us forward for The Cleaner Vehicles Award. He feels with all of our proactive efforts that we should be awarded the Diamond category as recognition for all our hard work. We are awaiting confirmation of which award we will be getting and as soon as this is known we will post more information here.

We have been advised by the London Borough of Hillingdon that using biodiesel may invalidate some of the manufacturers warranties on vehicles. All of our company owned vehicles are running on biodiesel and have been for some time without any incidents. We are currently talking to vehicle manufacturers for approval. At present biodiesel does not effect warranties on these vehicles in Europe and the United States.

We recently received two commendations from the recent Green Fleet Awards.