Hybrid Truck Project Wins Environmental Partnership Award

The Belfer Center's Environment and Natural Resources Program (ENRP) has announced that the 2005 Roy Family Award for Environmental Partnership will go to the FedEx-Environmental Defense Future Vehicle Project. The award - presented bi-annually to celebrate an outstanding partnership project that enhances environmental quality through the use of novel and creative approaches - will be presented to the recipients in the spring of 2005 at the Kennedy School.

The Future Vehicle Project - a collaboration of Environmental Defense, Federal Express and the Eaton Corporation - has introduced a hybrid delivery truck that increases fuel efficiency by over 50 percent and reduces particulate emissions by 96 percent. With 18 hybrid trucks already on the road, FedEx plans to build on the success of this demonstration and make the hybrid vehicles the standard replacement in its weight class of 30,000 medium-duty trucks.

"This unique project demonstrates that hybrid trucks can be a practical, economically viable alternative," said Henry Lee, director of ENRP, which coordinates the Roy Family Award. "The trucks also reduce greenhouse gas emissions that cause global climate change," he said, "and improved fuel efficiency translates into reduced oil dependency."

The hybrid truck partnership was selected from a group of highly qualified projects that tackled environmental problems ranging from deforestation to urban sprawl.