 | ADVERTISING IN AFTENPOSTEN: Ruter is promoting a good eco-message in the Oslo papers. |
If you have been on buses in Oslo you will certainly have travelled by UniBuss. The company runs buses for Ruter AS and has an environmental policy which is intended to focus on environmentally friendly bus travel. The company has now entered into a contract with Kemetyl for the supply of biofuel which contains ethanol from Borregaard. Norway 1 Brazil 0
The Kemetyl Group is Europe's leading supplier of car, home and leisure products to the consumer market. Borregaard has been working with them for many years, supplying ethanol for a range of applications. Now, for the first time, Kemetyl is supplying biofuels in Norway.
When Kemetyl put in its bid to supply biofuel, Borregaard was one of the proposed sub-contractors for ethanol. The alternative was a company in Brazil. Whilst the competition produces ethanol from sugar cane, Borregaard's ethanol is based on timber. In the end it was Kemetyl's Borregaard alternative which UniBuss and Ruter chose to go with, in spite of its being somewhat more expensive. Which means that 20 Oslo buses are now running on bioethanol from Borregaard. Good arguments
Nils Ellingsen, technical manager of AS Sporveisbussene, believes it was the overall CO2 account which made the difference.
"There were many arguments for going with the more expensive solution. As well as the Borregaard ethanol coming out well in the overall CO2 account, it has the great advantage of coming from timber which is basically not competing for space with agriculture," says Ellingsen. Hoping for Swan label
Borregaard has prepared an application to the Norwegian Eco-Labelling Foundation for the Swan eco-label for the ethanol. The swan label confirms that products and services fulfil defined environmental requirements and involve tests by independent laboratories and spot checks. We hope to receive a response to the application during the summer.
|