Our Partnership with Shell

Students from around the world travel to school in buses that still run on fossil fuels. In Hong Kong for example, school buses travel more than 7 million kilometres every day. And even though 90% of commuters in Hong Kong use public transport, almost all our transport runs on fossil fuels which impacts the health of our kids, our communities, and our planet.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. School buses can lead the way to a cleaner future for our children by shifting to biodiesel.

In 2014, Shell became the first oil company in Hong Kong to supply biodiesel to its commercial customers at retail filling stations. Their product known as Shell FuelSave B5 Diesel is an exclusive formulation which is a blend of 5% biodiesel and 95% fossil fuel diesel.

Biodiesel is a diesel substitute manufactured typically from vegetable oil, animal fat or soyabean oil. If it is produced from locally collected waste cooking oil (as it is in Shell’s case), B5 has the capacity to eliminate carbon emissions from road transport by 8-10%. There’s no better solution right now.

The unique formulation of Shell FuelSave B5 Diesel, namely Dynaflex, also cleans up the engine, achieves better fuel economy and reduces the risk of fuel degradation. It is currently available at three Shell filling stations in New Territories and Kowloon (Tsing Yi, Ma On Shan, and Kowloon Bay). There are several schools in Hong Kong that are located in close proximity to these filling stations.

So why isn’t it in our school buses?

Through our partnership with Shell, we hope to work with our member schools and student ambassadors to demonstrate the feasibility of implementing biodiesel in school buses and lead the way to a cleaner future for our children.

Watch a video of our workshop ‘Biodiesel in Sustainable School Buses’ at ReThink 2022 to hear success stories of biodiesel in school buses in other cities.