For the last ten years, Virgin Atlantic has been pursuing a strategy to reduce its environmental impact throughout its commercial airline and tour operating businesses. While much of the focus is on its aircraft, the company also wanted to minimise both CO2 and NOx emissions in its road fleet. It turned to Lex Autolease to provide the expertise needed to upgrade its business vehicles and find the right models to support its green agenda.

“We already had hybrid vehicles in the fleet, but wanted to incorporate fully electric vehicles if we could. That meant ensuring the right models and vehicles were chosen to support our business needs,” says Lee Hill, Senior Executive, Contracts and Sustainability at Virgin Atlantic. “The new technologies can all be a little overwhelming if you’ve not looked into it previously. It was actually the amount of market change that was proving most challenging for me.” The expertise of the Lex Autolease consultants meant they could answer Lee’s questions and provide guidance on the practicalities of electric vehicles.

It wasn’t just the electric vehicles themselves that were challenging for Virgin Atlantic, it was also the infrastructure needed to support them. Lex Autolease helped the firm to make sure that the charging facilities it has on site are in the right locations and are optimal for the future development of the fleet.

Lex Autolease has also supported Virgin Atlantic’s future strategy. “Currently, we have two fully electric vehicles in the fleet. We’ve got an additional seven electric cars to come in 2018. We also introduced 44 petrol-electric hybrids in 2017, with a further 23 to follow during 2018,” says Lee.

With support from Lex Autolease, Virgin Atlantic has not only made its fleet greener, it’s saving money too. Introducing electric cars and more hybrid vehicles has led to an estimated carbon saving over five years of more than 190 tonnes of CO2, which equates to a projection of £55,000 in cost savings.