Jointly run by Transport for London (TfL) and the New West End Company, the coalition of businesses urged logistics and waste collection firms to plan routes efficiently and make fewer trips during a six-month period.

Under the scheme, the businesses have helped bring about a 94% decrease in the number of waste and courier vehicle movements in the area, against a 2014 baseline.

The campaign has also led to a 67% reduction in the number of rubbish bags left on pavements during shopping hours, and a 17% reduction in kerbside vehicle stops overall, against the same baseline.

Bond Street has notably been found to play host to similar levels of air pollution to Oxford Street, which reached the legal air pollution limit for the whole of the year in just five days. The area has since seen pollution levels improve following recent changes to bus routes.

“Bond Street is renowned for its luxury brands, elegant stores and fine jewels, art and antique -, but the number of commercial vehicles were undermining its world-class status,” the New West End Company’s director of placemaking Dan Johnson said.

“The success of this consolidated approach to waste, recycling and freight vehicles sets the blueprint for other retail and business centres in London.”

TfL predictions indicate that freight trips within London’s West End will increase by 10% by 2021. Going forward, the firm will continue to work with the New West End Company to expand the scheme to the rest of Mayfair in 2019 and the whole Oxford Street district by end of 2020.

Sustainable shopping 

In related news, luxury fashion designer Stella McCartney has this week moved to stock biodegradable mannequins at its Bond Street store.

Produced by mannequin manufacturing firm Bonaveri, the mannequins consist of a biopolymer derived from sugarcane and are coated with a bio-based paint made from organic fibres and dyes. 

Bonaveri claims that the mannequins will suffer no degradation under shop-floor conditions, but will decompose into water and the amount of CO2 sequestered by the sugarcane during its vegetative phase under industrial composting conditions. 

Throughout their lifecycle, the mannequins are estimated to produce 24% less carbon emissions than fossil-fuel derived plastic alternatives. 

Stella McCartney’s Bond Street store made headlines earlier this year when it installed cutting-edge filter technology which purports to remove 95% of traffic fumes and residual airborne pollutants. 

Developed by Dutch startup Airlabs, the air filters were installed in a drive to create “the capital’s cleanest pocket of air”. 

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