Fleets need a little extra support in going green

The fleet industry is already doing its bit to reduce its impact on the environment, but needs extra help and support to make a more serious impact claims Lex, the UK’s leading contract hire company.

Lex believes many fleets are working hard to minimise their effect on the environment. However much more could be done by working with their contract hire provider, manufacturer or fuel card partner for more support and strategic assistance when considering how to go that extra ‘green’ mile.

“Government legislation has made a positive impact on reducing emissions across the fleet industry as key items such as Vehicle Excise Duty and Benefit in Kind taxation are all CO2 based,” explained Jon Walden, Lex Managing Director.

“Higher taxes on private fuel benefit has reduced the number of employees taking the benefit and hence focused these drivers on fuel costs and fuel efficiency. This has resulted in more senior drivers opting for diesel cars which use less fuel and emit lower levels of CO2. But where fleets need the most help is with the softer issues that reduce their carbon footprint,” said Walden.

Lex decided it needed to act on improving its green credentials back in the late 90s and was one of the first companies to achieve the ISO14001 environmental accreditation. It monitors and measures the entire company’s impact on the environment from recycling paper and office energy usage to measuring company car fleet emissions.

“We would never recommend adding to a company’s administrative burden unnecessarily, but ISO14001 is a useful way of measuring where you are, where you would like to be and generally getting the whole company behind going green.

“Company cars can play a major part in this process and you can start to look at annual emissions, number of journeys made and even incentivising drivers to opt for smaller, more fuel and tax efficient cars,” he said.

The introduction of ISO also led Lex to adopt video conferencing in its Marlow, Stockport and Stirling offices which reduced the number of driver journeys between offices, suppliers and customers by over 2,500 in 2006.

The Lex Momentum consultancy team has also proven that companies who take CO2 emissions seriously when building their company car choice list will end up with a more environmentally friendly car policy and dramatically reduced fuel costs. In a Healthcheck review, Lex identified annual fuel cost savings of £16,000 on a customer’s fleet of 95 cars with an annual fuel spend of £322,000. This was possible by introducing initiatives to reduce the fleet’s average CO2 emission rating by just one tax band.

Reducing average CO2 emissions yields benefits to both the employee and employer. The employee benefits from reduced company car tax and often private fuel costs which provides incentives for selecting more efficient car choices, while the company benefits from lower fuel costs, VED and Class 1A National Insurance Contributions. The impact of reducing the average tax band on the same customer’s fleet by one level will reduce its annual NIC bill by 5%

“It’s often some of the smaller changes to the fleet that give the largest environmental benefit. Contract hire providers, manufacturers, fleet suppliers and even fuel card companies should all be swapping information and processes in a bid to make a difference,” said Walden.

Lex carried out its own survey in January into company car priorities for 2007 and running a greener company car fleet came third out of 10 issues behind Health and Safety and Vehicle Running Costs, two places ahead of the Bearing Point report.