SPONSORED STORY: As sustainability climbs the agenda for the CQC as well as owners and managers across the care sector, Helen Buchan explains why JLA’s mobile service-led business model is also giving care home customers extra peace of mind.
JLA’s recent UK-wide, sustainability-focused survey of care home owners and workers revealed that 67% of care home decision-makers now see it as very or extremely important that their suppliers take sustainability seriously. It’s a finding that reinforces why anyone working in the care supply chain must be able to show a genuine commitment to reducing emissions – not least because compliance increasingly depends on it.
At JLA, we look after than 22,000 organisations across 50,000 sites nationwide, including hundreds of customers in social care. Critical to our own service model are the 450 in-house engineers who provide round-the-clock coverage, up and down the country. This network is central to our responsiveness, and our success – but it’s also a huge part of our sustainability credentials. Thanks to our local service, we can reduce unnecessary mileage and cut carbon with every call-out.
Our ‘fast, lean and smart’ (FLS) approach to route optimisation and journey planning has made this even more effective. By making the most of real-time monitoring tools, we’ve now cut the average mileage per engineer visit from 27 to 21 miles, leading to a substantial saving in emissions. In fact, across our annual 200,000 site visits, this adds up to a saving of around 400 tCO₂e.
Our smarter scheduling initiative has taken place alongside a broader move to electrify our fleet. As vehicles account for the majority of our Scope 1and 2 emissions, we’ve spent the last two years transitioning 99% of our company car fleet from internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles to electric alternatives (EVs) – and we’re actively targeting an 80% electric/hybrid van fleet by 2030. In total, these changes have already seen our Scope 1 emissions drop by 11% since 2022, from 4,071 tCO2e to 3,550 tCO2e.
But our commitment to efficiency doesn’t stop on the road, either. With over 350,000 OEM parts available across our network at any one time, we’re proud to be able to resolve the majority of our customers’ equipment issues on the very first visit – and often well within our 8-hour SLA. This not only means less downtime for the care homes we support, but fewer emissions caused by return visits and repeat journeys.
And as we continue to expand our remote equipment monitoring and proactive care platform, JLA Connect, we expect to help our care home customers make further savings by spotting issues sooner and further reducing the need for on-site visits.
To catch up on our recent free webinar – which covers vital insights from our recent care sector survey and summer workshop, plus practical guidance on energy-saving measures that won’t compromise your standards of car – please visit us here.
