The UK could unlock £100bn in investment opportunities to decarbonise Heavy Goods Vehicles (HGVs), a new report by the Green Finance Institution (GFI) has shown.

The GFI's report highlights how crucial private and public investment is in decarbonising HGVs, suggesting a variety of ways that investment in both vehicles and infrastructure could lead to a significant cut in emissions. Decarbonising these vehicles would have the same effect as removing 12 million cars from the road as HGVs are among the UK’s most polluting vehicles and account for approximately a fifth of the UK’s transport emissions.

Solutions outlined include a stable policy environment to support investments, which has already been seen through the government setting end of sales dates for new diesel trucks, and investment into research and development of alternative energy. The report also suggests that the following could we done to assist with upgrading vehicles including: shared risk agreement for investors; component lending to spread to costs of upgrading HGVS; concessional financing including lower interest rates and longer repayment schedules; and government backed guarantees to support lenders providing loans to small businesses.

However, the GFI points out that there is limited time remaining, as many HGV operators in the UK have just one more cycle of replacing their fleet before the diesel truck end of sales dates, which means many are making decisions now that will impact the speed at which they are able to decarbonise in the future.

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