Bio-diesel has made "bugger all difference" to reducing the environmental impact of the food and drink industry, according to Douglas Gurr, strategy and logistics director for Asda.

Gurr, speaking at the IGD's Sustainable Distribution conference last week, said he wished Asda "hadn't gone to the cost and trouble" of introducing a 5% blend of bio-diesel to 60% of its distribution fleet.

This was because bio-fuels had not made nearly as significant an impact on the environment as other initiatives such as increasing the capacity of delivery trucks.

"We introduced bio-

diesel into the fleet because it was the right thing to do," he added. "But with the benefit of hindsight, and if we had got someone to work out the sums, if we had our time again we would have gone down a different route."

In spite of this, Asda would continue to use bio-diesel, he said.

Gurr's views echoed a recent report by Defra's Food Industry Sustain­ability Strategy Champions' Group on Food Transport, which is chaired by Asda chief operating officer David Cheesewright.

The group said it found "the benefits from alternative fuels to be small".

Gurr again called for companies to combine deliveries in a bid to achieve the government's target of a 20% reduction in the social and environmental costs of food transport by 2012.

"Done well, collaboration can save money and the environment so it is probably the way we should all go," he said.

There were a number of "plausible opportunities" for Asda, he added, and he did not rule out possible collaborations with Tesco, Sainsbury's and Morrisons.

Asda could achieve a 3.2% cut in carbon emissions by 2012 through transport collaboration - equal to nine million miles, he estimated.

"Transport collaboration is hard to do but it is worth making the effort. We don't want to fall into the trap of thinking it is impossible."

ECR UK, the retailer and manufacturer-led supply chain initiative managed by IGD, said at the conference that four 'speed-dating' events, attended by 18 manufacturers and five retailers, had identified opportunities to eliminate 687 ­deliveries a week through collaboration.

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