Transport firm ATC to spend €22.5m on cutting carbon emissions

Specialist transport business ATC is spending more than €22 million on cutting greenhouse gas emissions from its business, including a big investment in electric trucks.
The Dublin-based, family-owned firm employs 255 people in providing transport and logistics to “hyper-scale” data centres in the Republic and nine other European countries.
The group plans to spend €22.5 million over five years on cutting greenhouse gas emissions so it can be carbon neutral by 2030, Keith Young, managing director, confirmed.
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ATC will spend the money across its operations but, as a transport company, its trucks will account for most of the investment, as they produce the majority of emissions, Mr Young pointed out.
It already has two electric vehicles operating in Germany and plans to have 11 running by the end of this year, all Volvos.
Mr Young and his colleagues saw some of their trucks rolling off the Volvo production line in Gothenburg, Sweden, as they are made to order.
The process takes five months, which the businessman believes is reasonable. He also pointed out that getting the systems in to charge the trucks at ATC’s Baldonnell HQ took longer.
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“The charging infrastructure has taken nine months, we got the trucks in five months,” he said.
Getting approvals and permits from various bodies, including State energy company the ESB contributes to the long period it takes to complete this work, he explained.
However, Mr Young added that the problem is universal. In the UK it can take up to a year, and in German, several months.
As manufacturers continue to develop electric heavy goods vehicles with greater capacity and range, charging facilities will lag. “Charging infrastructure is where the bottleneck will be,” Mr Young warned.
ATC has 45 trucks that can criss-cross the continent. Electric Volvos have a range allowing them to travel routes such as Dublin to Dundalk and back in a day.
Customers’ needs partly sparked ATC’s plans as emissions from its trucks are attributed to them – most aim to be carbon neutral themselves by the decade’s end.
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It received €500,000 from a Government zero-emission vehicle scheme administered by Transport Infrastructure Ireland towards the cost of the trucks it is buying here. At €330,000 each, they are more than twice the price of the diesel equivalent.
The Irish group also wants to boost its workforce to 300 and open two more international offices by 2026. Revenue this year is likely to be €45 million.
About half its business is now outside the Republic. ATC began its European expansion in 2017 with the backing of State agency Enterprise Ireland.
Founded by Mr Young’s parents, Alan and Patricia Young, ATC always focused on the technology industry. Early clients included Sun Microsystems and Apple. This experience prompted it to chase the opportunities offered by data centre development here.
Transporting servers is demanding, according to its managing director. “If they are damaged on the way in, systems can be compromised and, on the way out, customers’ data can be affected,” he explained. “Their security protocols are very high, the work is very specialised.”