VICTORIA — The B.C. government is kicking in $500,000 into the Green Fleets B.C. partnership to reduce vehicle emissions and improve air quality, Environment Minister Barry Penner said this week.

The program will offer fleet managers information on selecting the most fuel-efficient, cleanest vehicles of their class, adopting progressive engine technologies, including hybrids, and finding low-emission fuels.

Participating members get tools and resources including the E3 Fleet Rating Handbook — the authoritative source for greening vehicle fleets.

The program also helps companies choose best management practices, including good vehicle maintenance, careful route planning and sound driving practices.

A cornerstone of the GFBC program is expansion of E3 Fleet, North America’s first green rating service for fleet vehicles. Participating fleets receive in-depth reviews to help guide their planning, and can pursue a bronze, silver or bronze rating as a mark of excellence.

BCTA says its proposed green retrofit program
for older trucks could cuts GHGs by 30 percent.

Fleets will receive a detailed set of reports and a synopsis providing a snapshot of present emissions and performance. For those fleets already on their way to greening their operations, a third-party audited rating process that recognizes leading fleets for their efforts is also available.

Other specific goals include: Recruiting at least 50 green-rated fleets under the E3 Fleet service by 2010, including the Government of B.C. Fleet; assistance to fleets in using renewable fuels, focusing on education and a distribution infrastructure for biodiesel — and helping to meet the Province’s target of five percent renewable fuel content in diesel by 2010.

Also, together with the Ministry of Transportation and the B.C. Trucking Association, the program hopes to be able to demonstrate green trucking technologies in at least 1,000 commercial trucks, including on-board idling reduction technologies, aerodynamics and fuel-efficient single tires.

No doubt, the BCTA considers all this a good start. But before the trucking industry can truly start cutting emissions, it needs the province’s cooperation to establish incentives and provide regulatory flexibility, wrote BCTA President Paul Landry in an editorial — echoing the message for Canadian Trucking Alliance CEO David Bradley, who coincidently is in Ottawa this week giving the feds a similar speech. (See today’s other online news story “CTA urges Finance Committee to approve incentives for green trucks” — link below).

Like its national counterpart, the BCTA is trying to simultaneously accelerate the absorption of 2007 smog-free trucks into the B.C. fleet and encourage the use of fuel-saving technologies. But there are roadblocks, says Landry.

For starters, the price of the 2007 engines are about $8,000 more than previous models and are more expensive to maintain. Also, the add-on fuel efficiency devices are costly. To make matters even more challenging, trucks lose up to 400 pounds in payload because current regulations do not recognize the weight penalty of the new smog-reducing equipment.

“Like many industries, trucking has razor thin profit margins,” writes Landry.

In a brief to the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services, BCTA recommended that the province offer incentives to accelerate the new environmentally equipment in the market, as well as encourage energy efficiency retrofits for the tens of thousands of pre-2007 trucks that are on B.C. roads today.

A fully deployed package of retrofits — including auxiliary power units, aerodynamic features on the truck and trailer, and tires with less rolling resistance — can reduce GHGs by as much as 30 percent, says BCTA.