2025 Green Fleet Award Series-10.17.25 2025 Green Fleet Webinar Series. Top Green Fleets

Video Transcription

Video Summary

The NAFA Greenfleets webinar featured insights from leading fleet sustainability professionals, focusing on practical strategies for transitioning to greener fleets. Stephen Ricci of Denver International Airport highlighted their extensive efforts to electrify their large fleet, emphasizing careful planning, right-sizing vehicles, and developing infrastructure like a new EV charging plaza that repurposes old fuel sites. Denver balances electric vehicles (8% of light-duty fleet) with heavy-duty vehicle pilots and maintains in-house expertise for installation and safety training, enhancing cost-efficiency and operational control.<br /><br />Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) representatives Lindsay Shigatomi and Malia Kotis presented a structured approach to fleet electrification through EDF’s Fleet Electrification Solution Center. They outlined five phases: assessing current fleet and strategy, feasibility analysis and infrastructure planning, deployment and securing funding, performance evaluation, and scaling successful initiatives. EDF also offers the Climate Core Fellowship, placing trained graduate students with organizations to bolster green workforce capacity and advance sustainability projects.<br /><br />Ron Worth from Sacramento County described their diverse fleet across a large, challenging geography, with 64% of fuel consumption from alternative and renewable fuels including renewable natural gas and diesel. Sacramento invests heavily in data-driven decisions via GPS telematics, vehicle replacement forecasting, and collaborative planning to accommodate varied vehicle needs. They faced challenges with specialty vehicles and infrastructure, stressing the importance of customizing solutions per fleet.<br /><br />Panel discussions emphasized the importance of data, training, multi-technology approaches (electric, CNG, renewable fuels), right-sizing fleets, and strategic planning to overcome operational and regulatory challenges. The session underscored that green fleet success requires persistent, multifaceted efforts tailored to each organization's unique context.

Keywords

fleet sustainability

electrification strategies

Denver International Airport

EV charging infrastructure

Environmental Defense Fund

Fleet Electrification Solution Center

renewable fuels

GPS telematics

fleet right-sizing

multi-technology approach