the Carbon Challenge

Fleet Heroes...

Tuesday night saw the 4^th annual Energy Saving Trust Fleet Heroes Awards take place. It’s an awards scheme that has really grown since it began back in 2006 with this year’s being the most successful date. We had over 100 applications from 74 different organisations across England – a 54 per cent rise compared to 2008. This is testament to the importance that organisations with fleets, and the motor industry themselves are placing on improving their green credentials, even in the face of difficult economic times.  And much is being achieved, car registration statistics show us that last year average car emissions fell over four per cent to 158g/km, and to September this year have fallen another five per cent. This is great news, yet more can and must be achieved by driving these increasingly efficient vehicles both more economically and less.

 

It is also clear that reducing emissions from road transport is something that the Government is taking seriously – demonstrated by the fact that the Rt Hon Sadiq Khan MP, Minister of State, Department of Transport delivered a keynote speech at the awards. During his speech the Minister made a very telling point, in reference to those organisations being honoured, which was “ultimately it is your efforts, and your innovation, that we rely on to translate policy into practice, and to turn legislation into low carbon delivery.”

 

We here – at the Energy Saving Trust – will continue to he this happen through our Green Fleet services, which many companies are now using.   More recently the Energy Saving Trust Green Fleet Review service has expanded over the border to Wales to offer companies there free fleet advice. We are already seeing a lot of interest and I am sure it will really take off over the coming year.

 

And finally I’d like to thank the judging panel, which included Julie Jenner: ACFO Chairman and Key Solutions Manager at GE Capital Solutions, Terry Slavin of the Guardian and William Brocklehurst, Senior Policy Advisor Climate Change at the CBI.

 

Detailed below is who won what on the night…

 

 

Best Public Sector Fleet 250 + vehicles

Winner    - HMRC

Runner up - Islington Borough Council

  

Best Public Sector Fleet under 250 vehicles

Winner - Lake District National Park Authority

Runner up - Corby Borough Council

 

Best Private Sector Fleet 250 + vehicles  

Winner - Amey

Runner up - Rok

 

Best Private Sector Fleet under 250 vehicles   

Winner - Cumbria Seafoods

 

Grey Fleet Champion

Winner - West Sussex County Council

Runner up - Derbyshire County Council

 

Business Mileage Champion

Winner - E.ON

Runner up - HMRC

 

Industry Supplier Award   

Winner - BMW

Runner up - Green Motion

 

Innovation in Car and Van Manufacture    

Winner - Ford

Runner up - Citroen

 

Innovation in Service and Systems    

Winner - Leasdrive Velo

Runner up - Tom Tom

 

Smarter Driving Award  

Winner - Oxford City Council

Runner up - Hampshire Partnership Trust

 

Leadership   

Winner - Enviroment Agency

Runner up- Amey

Nigel Underdown - Head of Energy Saving Trust Transport Advice, the Energy Saving Trust fleet consultants and myself at the Fleet Hero Awards 2009

(From left to right: Tony Greig, Nigel Underdown, Helen Moore, David Nicholas, Philip Sellwood, Pete Lunt, Karl Anders)

Nigel Underdown - Head of Transport Advice - on Carbon Free TV

Nigel Underdown, Head of Transport Advice for the Energy Saving Trust, was recently interviewed for Carbon Free TV about how we can collectively help to curb the trend of rising transport emissions by making more informed choices when purchasing a car. You can watch the full interview below.   

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Not a lot of people know this!

For those of you who were not fortunate enough to make their way eastwards to the Excel Centre yesterday to join the thousands of others taking part in the Motor Show, let me tell you it’s an interesting experience!

At the Motor Show we launched - with a small fanfare thanks to the less than adequate entrance/exit arrangements at the Centre – our new report Driven. The report was written by David Kenington - one of our young up and coming staff here at the Trust - and a good read it is too.  I will not attempt to repeat all the findings contained in the report and the media briefing (although links to these are given below). What I will concentrate on – having read the report in detail - are some of the more interesting and perhaps surprising nuggets contained within it.

Did you know that the growth of cars has now reached the stage where there are more cars than households in the UK? Not surprising you might think, but interestingly research has shown suggests that eventually you do get to a point where enough is enough.  In California, for instance, the number of cars - believe it or not - per household now exceeds the number of people living in those households. This has had the perverse, but I suppose unsurprising effect of a reduction in miles per vehicle driven.  It’s a strange world.

You probably already knew that diesel cars tend to be 10% to 20% more efficient than petrol cars, in terms of fuel and overall CO2 emissions. However, as manufacturers have needed to develop more and more diesel vehicles to satisfy demand - now running at about 40% of market share - what have they chosen to do?  Yes - they have opted to produce larger engine diesel vehicles rather than the smaller vehicles that previously dominated.  The result? Diesel-fuelled car average CO2 emissions are actually going up. Bizarre! 

These sorts of stats are a real ‘did you know' for me. And there are more. Did you know that SUV’s are far from the worse performing class of motor vehicle in terms of average CO2 emissions?  Now compared to small and super mini class they may not be good, but compared to the rest of the market they are certainly not the worse. Those accolades lie with the Sports and Luxury Saloon sectors. The Luxury Saloon being the worst of the lot with average CO2 emissions of - get ready for it - 274 grams per kilometre!   Now sales are low compared to other segments, but we all know who drives the luxury saloons: opinion formers, company bosses, politicians…You get my drift - not much of an example!

Finally, some good news! You might think those new fangled MPVs carrying 5, 6, 7 people would be real gas guzzlers, but the pleasingly over the last decade they have actually show the greatest improvement in terms of CO2 reductions at 23% and the best improvement in fuel efficiency.  I think perhaps we need to think about this more when we hear the arguments around the need for larger vehicles.  Larger vehicles don’t need to be 4x4s - not when MPVs have this sort of CO2 track record anyway.

Finally, and no doubt slightly more controversially there needs to be a push back on the current hysteria around Vehicle Excise Duty (VED). A research document published a couple of years ago by our Transport Strategy Manager, Alex Veitch, revealed that even small rises in VED are very effective in reducing CO2. Therefore, I am particularly supportive of a higher first year VED rate as this will make it a more significant financial cost in comparison to the price of the car. VED and hopefully have an impact on purchasing decisions.  I am personally not so sure about the retrospective element of VED, but I am convinced there is a clear signal to people buying new cars to help them change their behaviour. 

I would be interested in views.

Click here to read the Driven report

Click here to read the press release

Greening your fleet: James McNaughton Group plc show the way!

I was delighted to be invited by James McNaughton Group to help them officially launch their new ‘GM2’ Modec electric van outside our offices a couple of weeks ago. This vehicle, charged by renewably generated electricity, replaces a traditional diesel van. It has the potential to save over 4,250 litres of fuel and around 11 tonnes of CO2 emissions each year.

The new electric truck is just the icing on the cake though. After receiving a free Green Fleet Review from us (find out more about what we offer by clicking here!) the James McNaughton Group implemented a number of measures to help improve the environmental impact of their fleet. For example, ensuring drivers on the employee car ownership scheme opt for a diesel, petrol-electric hybrid car capable of doing a minimum of 37 mpg – rising to a minimum of 42 mpg by end of this year. They have also introduced smarter driving training and a journey planner guide and capture data to enable comprehensive and ongoing analysis of fuel usage and miles driven.

Of course the best way of saving fuel and reducing carbon dioxide emissions is by not travelling in the first place. Therefore, to reduce fleet mileage, James McNaughton installed video conference facilities in their offices. No doubt, I’ve forgotten to include some of the many other measures they’ve implemented, but there iis no question that James McNaughton should provide a benchmark for other organisations aiming to reduce their own environmental impact. If nothing else can convince you - then take at look at the savings James McNaughton have achieved since the Green Fleet Review.

- More than 69 cars have been changed and the fleet profile is now 60 per cent diesel

- Total business mileage has been cut by 107,000 miles, despite 17 cars being added to the fleet in 2006.

- In 2007 annual fuel costs were reduced by more than £86,000, and an estimated 245 tonnes of CO2 emissions cut. Drivers are also benefiting because they are saving money on the fuel tax they pay on their private mileage.

- In addition, the company’s logistics operation has spent the last few years implementing better route planning and reduced its fleet by 43 vehicles, cutting road mileage by over one million miles per year and carbon emissions by 975 tonnes.

New retro-fit hybrid vehicle conversion kit unveiled by MIRA

Well late last week it finally arrived.  The first concept car with a plug less plug-in battery.  I won’t begin to try and explain the technology (you will be delighted to discover), but basically the difference between this and normal hybrids is that you can actually take the car, so to speak, via the battery pack to the mains, rather than having to park right next to the socket - which, as you can imagine, is a tad difficult if you live in a tenement block. 

This new vehicle is based on the immensely popular Skoda Fabia.  It not only differentiates itself from the standard model by having a different label, but by returning 64 miles per gallon as measured on accepted drive cycles!  The ultimate aim of the project is to see whether the battery packs can be transferred from the car into a range of other devices, which could include such things as SUV variants, electric jet skies or quad bikes. 

So this project jointly funded by Mira and Energy Saving Trust through the Low Carbon Research and Development programme could represent a major step forward in the hybrid vision of the future delivering lower tail pipe emissions, better fuel efficiency but at an equivalent diesel cost, now wouldn’t that be a first!