Western Australia-based landscaping and construction business Environmental Industries has enjoyed steady growth since its early days in the ’80s, with a fleet that has now pushed over 100 trucks.
The company works on projects across a wide scale, from high-profile state and local government projects including playgrounds, parks and sporting fields, through to commercial land developments and streetscapes through Perth’s beaches and right out to the cities and towns of the Pilbara.
While they started with a single ute, owned by founder Barry Winterbourn, they’ve grown their fleet and operations massively, now comprised of mostly Isuzu models.
Barry’s son Brendon now works as Environmental Industries’ general manager, and says that business is better than ever in 2024.
“Our clients are specifically looking for environments that people and the public will be excited to use, so the sites we build and maintain need to be inviting to encourage people into the space,” Brendon says.
“We’ve done many large projects over the years such as the grounds for Fiona Stanley Hospital, the Crown Towers in Perth, along with Central Park in the CBD, to name a few.
“Things really began to take off for the business in the early 2000s, back then we had four trucks and a few utes on the road.
“Now we have a combined fleet of about 100 vehicles including 40 Isuzu trucks for our staff across multiple projects.”
With many of the business’ projects now revolving around maintaining project spaces once the development has been completed, the fleet needs have changed significantly across the last four decades.
Brendon says they have started the move towards light-duty Isuzus, upgrading the utes still in the fleet.
“The business is transitioning away from utes towards light-duty Isuzu trucks for a number of reasons—they have better durability, we can fit more on the back of them, and we find they tow better than a ute,” he says.
“The smaller trucks, such as our NLRs, are perfect for three team members on a job site to travel to location with mowers and landscaping equipment loaded in the tray.”
The business finds Isuzu’s short wheelbase Ready-to-Work NLR 45-150 AMT Traypack—with GVM of 4,500 kg and GCM of 8,000 kg—a useful turnkey solution for carrying out their massive grounds maintenance roster.
Featuring a payload of over 2,000 kg and tray space large enough to load equipment and tools for the day, the NLR Traypack also offers a generous towing capacity of 4,000 kg, making an efficient exercise out of towing heavily loaded trailers.
Six-speed AMT with both fully automatic and clutchless manual operation modes rounds-out a package that is driveable on a car licence, meaning a wide range of Brendon’s staff can get behind the wheel at any time.
In addition to the Traypacks, the fleet also includes heavier-duty FVZ 240-300 Autos which have been specified as a water truck and a garbage compactor.
Environmental Industries has built a strong relationship with Major Motors Forrestfield and sales dealer Peter Dewar to continue to shift the fleet fully to Isuzu.
“Our two companies have worked together for a long period of time, and over that time have built up mutual trust and respect for one another,” Dewar says.
“Personally, I am very proud to have worked closely with Environmental Industries for almost 35 years.
“Collaborating with them on their fleet requirements and watching the business become the success it is today has been really rewarding.”