The cargo bikes are useful in families' daily lives - in the transportation of children or bulky purchases, for example - but also in logistics for retailers and other businesses. O El Corte Inglés realized this and this week began making deliveries by electric cargo bike to customers in the vicinity of its premises in São Sebastião.
The bicycle used by El Corte Inglés has a two-meter trailer which allows you to transport up to 300 kg of goods. With 50-kilometer rangeThis bike is already in service and has the capacity to carry around 20 deliveries per day the cycling and road network around the El Corte Inglés store in Lisbon.
This cargo bike will allow El Corte Inglés to respond to the demand for home delivery services, which has grown with the pandemic, and to do so efficiently - since "this transport alternative has the advantage of avoiding obstacles, such as traffic, which make the delivery process take longer"as El Corte Inglés points out in a statement. The company says it is committed to "to protect the environment and contribute to global sustainability and therefore works daily to increase the supply of more sustainable services"The boxes used in these deliveries are made from recycled 100% cardboard, which is collected from El Corte Inglés warehouses as part of the Zero Waste project and then transformed into new boxes.
El Corte Inglés is the first company to join the European project City Changer Cargo Bikewhich Lisbon City Council has been sponsoring and developing in the city since 2019. As part of this project, cargo bikes have already been lent to families, and this is the first time the initiative has moved from the family forum to the business environment.
In 2020, El Corte Inglés signed the Business Mobility Pact for the City of Lisbon (PMEL), a commitment promoted by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), Lisbon City Council (CML), and the Business Council for Sustainable Development (BCSD) Portugal. PMEL aims to contribute to more sustainable mobility in the city of Lisbon through concrete actions to which companies commit, in interaction with CML, their employees, suppliers and customers.
