The Dachstiftung Diakonie in Gifhorn is on its way to more sustainability. What began as waste separation and using environmentally-friendly paper is now trumped by the latest acquisition for its gardening and landscaping fleet. The e-excavator will be used to level pathways and dig up trees.
The environmentally-friendly excavator can move up to 0.12 m³ in a single ‘jawbite’, using purely electric power. “The advantage here is that this excavator doesn’t make any noise”, says Olaf Grein, Head of the Garden and Landscaping Department at the Dachstiftung Diakonie.
The cost of the new excavator amounts to 70,000 euros. The purchase was also made possible by funding in the amount of 15,536 euros under the electric mobility funding guideline, coordinated by NOW GmbH and implemented by Project Management Jülich (Projektträger Jülich (PtJ)).
The Volvo excavator is one of the first of its kind in the whole of Germany – and the very first one in northern Germany. The ECR25 Electric will immediately be put to use for garden and landscaping duties on the grounds of Diakonie Kästdorf.
With cogeneration units, solar energy in new buildings and environmentally-friendly materials – the Dachstiftung Diakonie, with some 3,800 staff across the whole of Lower Saxony and in Saxony-Anhalt, has been sustainability-focussed for some years. “It’s not so easy for a company of our size with many different locations”, admits Management Board member Dr. Jens Rannenberg. E-mobility is an important step in this regard towards a more sustainable future. “In the outpatient nursing care area, e-vehicles make sense. The fact that electric drives also work perfectly for large construction machinery, is even better.”