OfficeMax Accelerates Emissions Reduction With Focus On Corporate Fleet

OfficeMax New Zealand, the country’s leading workplace solutions specialist, has put a handbrake on its petrol-powered cars in a bid to cut its fleet emissions in half.

In line with the company’s 2025 Sustainability Strategy, its fleet of 105 conventional vehicles will be phased out by the end of 2023 and replaced with a combination of electric and hybrid models, as well as reducing the fleet to 95.

The move by OfficeMax will result in an estimated 50 percent reduction in fleet-based emissions, helping to cut scope 1 and 2 emissions by 25 percent by 2025, with the lower carbon emitting cars reducing the company’s CO2e emissions by approximately 185t per year.

The new fleet consists of:

• 16 full electric Hyundai Kona EVs
• 6 Toyota Corolla Hatch HEV
• 73 Toyota RAV 4 HEV GX

OfficeMax’s transition has involved working in close collaboration with its people, and its fleet manager of 10 years, FleetPartners.

“The first question we asked ourselves was ‘are our people ready?’ We knew that the transition was necessary, but we were also mindful that we had to properly understand the readiness of our people to adopt electric vehicles,” says Ben Norrie, Chief Financial Officer of OfficeMax New Zealand.

“We surveyed our staff and found that there was some education required regarding the distance EVs can travel before needing to be charged.”

The internal survey highlighted range anxiety (concern that an EV will not be able to drive the distance required), as a key issue with nearly half (44 percent) of staff. The cost of charging vehicles and uncertainty about how to drive an EV were also factors.

FleetPartners’ Corporate Relationship Manager, Sarah Lewis-Dawes, says that understanding staff misconceptions and helping them through this is a critical part of the journey to carbon zero.

“Kiwis are instinctively skeptical of EVs. Range anxiety can be eased once employees try out EVs for themselves and learn the ins and outs of charging them,” says Lewis-Dawes.

Drive days were arranged for staff to test out electrical vehicles, and in the process, OfficeMax made the decision to introduce home charging units to enable staff to feel more comfortable with the transition and ease range concerns.

“Home charging is just one element of the vehicle charge offerings that OfficeMax is undertaking. We are also installing charging units at our showrooms and offices, so that staff members have a range of options to meet their vehicle charging needs,” says Norrie.

The use of RFID technology within the charging units will allow drivers to track their individual power consumption, so that OfficeMax can reimburse staff appropriately.

OfficeMax’s hybrid vehicles will be delivered by the end of September, with its fully electric vehicles due to hit to road this month.

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