My business has carbon neutral accreditation—we supply cook pots in Guatemala and help to reforest Uganda to offset our carbon emissions. We do that because it helps us to win business from customers such as the Parliament and the Royal Bank of Scotland.
In our industry, we are moving apace. The standard of the vehicles is improving: they are newer and produce lower emissions. We are planting trees or doing whatever else we need to do to reduce our carbon footprint. We are doing all of those things because they make economic and commercial sense for us. There is a lot happening in the industry that does not need to be forced on us.
For me, as usual, the devil is in the detail. It is a question of rolling up our sleeves and making sure that what is applied is logical. I think that, by 2023, all the taxis in the major cities in Scotland will be Euro 6 compliant, electric or hybrid. That will happen without any interference or governance—that is happening anyway.
However, once we scratch below the surface a wee bit, we come across things that muddy the waters. For example, in Edinburgh and Glasgow at the moment, it is okay to sell on or buy a Euro 5 taxi as long as it is already in the city, but it is not okay to import one from outside the city. I cannot buy a Euro 5 taxi from London even if it has lower mileage, produces lower emissions, is in better condition and would cost me less, but I can buy such a vehicle in Edinburgh because it is already here. Things like that, where the detail is overly complicated and not terribly logical, muddy the waters.
We are managing our fleet anyway. Dundee, in particular, is a leading light as far as the introduction of electric vehicles into the taxi fleet is concerned and is worthy of a mention. In Edinburgh and Glasgow, where low-emission zones are proposed, the taxi fleet will be where it needs to be anyway.