Shoreham Vehicle Auctions achieves Electric Vehicle Approved status

Shoreham Vehicle Auctions (SVA) has achieved Electric Vehicle Approved (EVA) status following the rollout of several environmental initiatives over the last 18 months.

The EVA scheme has been developed by the National Franchised Dealers Association (NFDA) to recognise supplier and dealer excellence in the electric vehicle sector.

It is endorsed by the Government’s Office for Zero Emission Vehicles (OZEV) and the Energy Saving Trust.

The scheme encourages suppliers to develop their ability in selling electric vehicles (EVs) and recognises SVA’s expertise in the EV sector and promotes industry standards for the benefit of both buyers and sellers at auction.

SVA’s initiatives include 140 solar panels on the roof of its premises which produce 50kW of clean energy daily.

These help power 15 chargers that charge the growing number of EVs being sold at auction and to power SVA’s own company vehicle fleet.

The business has converted 90% of its own company fleet to EVs and and recently its electric Nissan eNV200 minibus - used by its plate drivers - passed 150,000 miles.

SVA has also achieved ISO 14001 the internationally agreed standard that powers its environmental management processes.

 Alex Wright, SVA managing director, said: “Our plans for becoming a net zero business have been in place for the past three years and we are pleased so many of those initiatives have started to come together.

“We are virtually 100% energy self-sufficient thanks to the solar panels and our internal processes have been brought into line with our ISO14001 accreditation.”

Energy Saving Trust independently audits individual suppliers to verify they meet a set of standards covering EV sales.

These include staff knowledge and training, EV education processes for customers as well as availability of EV charger points on site.

SVA has worked with the Energy Saving Trust since 2019 when it was the first auction to roll out training to its own staff and to dealers to educate them on what to look for when selling used EVs to its customers.