Joburg goes greener with hybrid cars
JOBURG – The City of Johannesburg’s green revolution moved up a gear when Mayor Parks Tau and the City’s fleet partner, Avis, launched a new fleet of fuel-efficient hybrid vehicles.
The launch took place at the Metro Centre in Braamfontein where Tau and Member of the Mayoral Committee for Group Corporate and Shared Services, councillor Mally Mokoena, introduced the City’s fleet-greening programme.
According to Tau, this programme supports one of the City’s green economy flagship initiatives to reduce demand for conventional fossil fuel vehicles which will lead to a reduction of greenhouse emissions.
Tau said, “The programme will prioritise the replacement of ageing and high-emission fleets with fuel-efficient hybrid vehicles, and converting some of the fleet vehicles to use bio-fuels and compressed natural gas.
“This project will be rolled out over a three-year period whereby the City aims for a cumulative target of 50 percent of the City’s fleet being green by 2017/18.”
Avis CEO, Clive Else, said it was a great day to be a Johannesburg citizen as the city council took concrete steps to implement a brave new green policy. “It is extremely encouraging, and a lesson to all in both the public and private sectors, to see that the City’s Growth and Development strategy, which addresses the bold vision of the city for 2040, has not been neatly filed away in a dusty cupboard,” he said.
“But it’s real and it’s being implemented, as you can see from the cars which are displayed here today.”
Tau concluded by saying the City was partnering with its service providers to achieve their environmental goals.
“This project fits neatly into the City’s other green transport and economy projects such as Metrobus and Rea Vaya which are already running similar projects,” he said.
