Selecting low CO2 emitting vehicles will result in significant cost savings and is a technology neutral policy that will not require revisiting every time new vehicle technologies arrive on the market. Targeting CO2 works across petrol, diesel and gaseous fuels, whether they have turbo chargers, twin chargers or hybrid drives.

Unfortunately for fleet operators there is no single environmentally perfect transport solution on the horizon. Effective green fleet management is the careful management of all the key elements of business travel and optimising these to minimise redundant mileage, inefficient vehicles and inefficient driving practices.

The future

Looking to the future, the traditional fuels of petrol and diesel will be around for some time yet. These fuels will yield greater fuel economy via engine downsizing and the increased use of turbo chargers and super chargers, and in some cases both used in parallel. Petrol and diesel hybrids with electric motor assist systems and regenerative braking will continue to come to market although their true benefits will only be realised when some manufacturing issues and cost premiums have been overcome. Plug-in hybrids which have larger battery capacities enabling them to cover significant distances purely under the electric system are also seen as a potential option. It is probably fair to say that the gaseous fuels have tried to establish themselves in the market a number of times, but always seem to prove impractical and unreliable, so the only real longer term solution being touted is hydrogen powered vehicles using fuel cells.

The key issues here though are sourcing the hydrogen, the safe and efficient handling and storage of the hydrogen, and building the supply network. These are substantial hurdles to overcome, but some time in the future an alternative to fossil fuels will be needed and all the vehicle manufacturers seem agreed that the long term future is hydrogen.

When the first internal combustion engine vehicles made their appearance one hundred years ago there were plenty of obstacles and doubters, but now these same vehicles are gridlocked by sheer numbers, so solutions will be found, although the key issue is when?

Until then we need to manage our natural resources carefully and ensure our fleet activities are sensitive to these issues and that our employees do not spend high levels of unproductive time spent stuck in traffic jams.

The good news, however, is that operating environmentally efficient vehicles does pay, as more and more aspects of tax policy reward low emitting, fuel efficient vehicles. There are a vast number of low CO2 emitting cars and fuel efficient vans available so you can and should act now.