Louisville, KY - Big Brown is trying to become more Green. UPS is working to lessen its carbon footprint.
UPS is a lot more than just airplanes and its familiar brown delivery trucks. At its giant Worldport operation at the Louisville International Airport, Louisville's largest private employer has about 2,000 ground support vehicles that include de-icing trucks and cargo loading equipment. Three hundred of those are powered by diesel fuel.
"We will use a B-5 blend of biodiesel to reduce our environmental impact as well as reduce our dependence on foreign oil," says Bill Jacob, the Vice President for Airline Ground Support Equipment at UPS in Louisville.
UPS is in the process of installing two giant storage tanks at Worldport that will allow the company to begin using a five percent blend of biodiesel fuel in those 300 vehicles. "So this is the start of alternative fuels at the Worldport facility," says Jacob.
UPS received a $515,000 grant from the state of Kentucky to help purchase a fuel truck, storage tank, and computer system.
The use of biodiesel by the company could mean more business for Kentucky soybean farmers, according to Jaime Vincent from the Kentucky Soybean Association. "Anytime you increase demand for a soybean by-product, which would be soybean oil which is used to make bio diesel, you are going to impact Kentucky farmers," says Vincent.
UPS has a goal to reduce its carbon footprint by 20 percent by the year 2020.
Biofuels are part of the company's long-term plan to reduce carbon emissions -- start with a few vehicles and then expand.
"The small percentage allows us a rolling laboratory approach, and we can then watch the technology and use it as a test as we move forward," says Jacob.
UPS says it's using at least six different technologies, including 20 electric hybrids of its brown delivery trucks as the company moves toward a greener future.
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