Scania launches biodiesel pilot in Côte d’Ivoire to reduce emissions, create new jobs

Scania West Africa, Total Energies Marketing Côte d’Ivoire, Agence Nationale d’Appui au Développement Rural (ANADER) and LA SIR have inaugurated a biodiesel pilot in Abidjan, the capital city of Côte d'Ivoire, Scania announced Nov. 10.

The pilot aims to dramatically reduce emissions from public transport and create jobs through locally produced biofuels.

According to Scania, the pilot is also a milestone in the company’s systematic way of working with partners, authorities and customers to enable the transition to sustainable transport.

Sustainably produced biofuels from waste are currently the best option to rapidly reduce emissions from most of the public transport systems in African countries.

Biodiesel will lower carbon emissions by up to 80 percent.

Recent studies have shown that biofuels will be vital for decarbonizing heavy-duty transport over the next few decades, for both new and existing fleets.

In 2017, Scania initiated a collaboration with ANADER, a public agency that supports rural development in Côte d’Ivoire, to find opportunities for producing local biofuels from cocoa and rubber, as well as other agricultural waste and animal manure, all of which are present in abundance in the country.

In July 2022, ANADER, Scania and Total Energies, a multinational energy company, signed an agreement to develop a pilot project to produce 3,500 liters (925 gallons) of fatty acid methyl ester (FAME) biodiesel from rubber seeds and test it for 30 days in a Scania bus operated by the local Abidjan transport company SOTRA.

“Together with our partners, we adopted a holistic and step-by-step approach to reduce the carbon footprint and air pollution from our buses,” said Nicolas Lougovoy, head of strategic projects for the Africa, Middle East and Central Asia region at Scania.

Over the past year, Scania has delivered 400 biodiesel-compatible standard buses and 50 biogas-compatible articulated buses to SOTRA as part of its sustainable-transport project with the Côte d’Ivoire Ministry of Transport.

The second phase of the project will start soon with the construction of a new bus depot and a Bus Rapid Transit corridor by Scania and its partners.

The system will provide fast, reliable and comfortable public-transport services to the residents of Abidjan.

“Combining Bus Rapid Transit and buses powered by locally produced biofuel from waste will multiply the positive social and environmental impacts by generating local jobs, extra incomes and significantly reducing carbon footprint and air pollution,” Lougovoy said. “We are proud to be part of this innovative and sustainable solution that will benefit both the people of the city and the planet.”