WINNER
Interserve Project Services, Fleet Carbon Reduction Scheme entered by The Miles Consultancy
This entrant’s UK car strategy is closely aligned with its business needs to provide transport for almost 1,300 drivers, as well as its corporate social responsibility goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Almost all the fleet is classified as job need and drivers often need to make long weekly or daily commutes to project sites around the country.
After discovering that transportation accounted for 90% of its carbon emissions in 2009, Interserve Project Services set a reduction target of 2.5% a year. To meet this group target, however, company car drivers are expected to reduce their emissions by 5%.
A number of steps were taken to help drivers do this, including video-conferencing and tele-conferencing to reduce car journeys; LPG and electric vehicles trialled and adopted in some parts of the business; and vehicle tracking and driver training on fuel efficiency.
All drivers have fuel cards, whether they receive private fuel benefit or repay the cost of fuel they use for private mileage. Transaction information from the fuel card company gave Interserve complete data on fuel volume and costs incurred by each driver.
This data was enough to calculate each driver’s emissions and cost per tonne of CO2, but it did not include detailed mileage information. Mileage reports were collected from disclaimed drivers electronically, but there was no way of combining this with fuel card data.
This was solved when Interserve introduced TMC’s mileage audit system, which combined mileage and fuel data to provide a wealth of information relating to costs, fuel consumption, travel patterns, tax liabilities and CO2 emissions.
A carbon reporting system was also developed to monitor emissions from the fleet continuously using an online dashboard. Each driver is also given quarterly individual emissions reports so they can monitor their progress.
As a result of its fleet strategy, Interserve’s transport emissions fell by 8.9%, from 12.8 tonnes of CO2 per £1 million of turnover in 2008 to 11.66 tonnes in 2009. This greatly exceeded the targeted reduction in carbon intensity of 2.5%.
RUNNERS UP
Bombardier Transportation UK, Bombardier Preference Salary Sacrifice 4 Cars entered by PricewaterhouseCoopers
Bombardier had decided to stop offering company cars from April 2010, intending that once the lease on company cars came to an end, employees would only be offered the cash alternative. But the board was shown how the UK tax system made it more cost-efficient to offer green vehicles and how savings could be generated through salary sacrifice.
Cable and Wireless Worldwide, iDrive
This entrant managed to improve its fleet provision at no extra cost to the business through a salary sacrifice car scheme, provided by Zenith Provecta. All employer national insurance and VAT savings were redirected into the scheme to reduce the cost of cars for employees.
CSC Computer Sciences, My Car Choices entered by Lex Autolease
A survey found employees wanted more vehicle choice, reduced personal tax bills and more environmentally friendly vehicle options. Designed with Lex Autolease, the scheme used 14 car manufacturers instead of two, while also achieving tax efficiency and environmental effectiveness.
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Green Cars in Benefits Plus entered by Aon Hewitt
A green car scheme introduced by the law firm in 2009 gave staff access to sustainable discounts, and attractive financial rates. The benefit, provided by Tusker, is available to all staff. In June 2010, Freshfields increased the range of vehicles available and saw take-up continue to rise. This wider choice was launched as part of its 2010 Benefits Plus.
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