How can we reduce our fleet carbon footprint?
Identifying ways to reduce fleet carbon footprint is a business priority. With climate change targets set into law in many countries, corporates under pressure to help achieve global sustainability goals and an ever-changing ESG reporting landscape, it’s time to act now. The great news is that reducing your fleet’s carbon footprint brings a whole host of benefits. And, thanks to the power of artificial intelligence (AI), measuring and managing fleet carbon footprint is easier than you think.
There are many benefits to going green
It’s obvious that reducing your fleet’s carbon footprint helps to create better air quality and contributes to a more sustainable planet. It also helps to support the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals and the global plea for organizations to commit to net zero.
At a business level, the benefits of reducing your fleet’s carbon footprint are plentiful, including:
- Making your business more sustainable
- Helping to cut costs
- Extending vehicle life
- Facilitating accurate ESG reporting
- Optimizing driver well-being through the promotion of eco-friendly driving practices
Know your fleet carbon footprint
The first place to start is by identifying your fleet’s carbon footprint as it is today. At Greater Than, we can help you to uncover driver impact insights from your existing GPS driving data. We can identify absolute CO2 emissions (grams or %) and can also calculate CO2 savings as a result of remedial action taken.
Once you’ve identified your current fleet carbon footprint, you can start to look at ways to reduce your environmental impact. At Greater Than, our focus is on guiding drivers to adopt more eco-friendly driving attitudes that measurably reduce CO2 emissions. Our experience shows us that simply making drivers more aware of the way they drive can reduce CO2 emissions by an average of 20%.
Review your fleet and operations
The right vehicle for the job
When looking to reduce fleet carbon footprint, some adjustments are bigger than others. Choosing the smallest vehicle for the job seems an obvious choice to reduce your CO2 output, but upsizing may also work if it means fewer overall trips and higher efficiency. Transitioning to an EV fleet might be in the pipeline, but this does not happen overnight and is likely to involve considerable planning, investment, and time. It’s also important to look at the total eco impact of EVs, not just the fuel reduction.
Route optimization
Route optimization is a positive step that can help to reduce fleet carbon footprint. For example, planning routes to avoid “stop-and-go” roads and traffic congestion. In fact, some map providers utilize AI to guide drivers along the most environmentally friendly routes based on various factors. This includes Google Maps who have been helping drivers plan green routes for over two years.
Reducing trips
A sure-fire way to cut emissions is to avoid trips in the first place, although this is not a viable option for many fleets, particularly service and delivery fleets. However, for sales or service fleets, it may be possible to replace some trips with virtual meetings or combine trips where possible.
Also, think beyond the fleet. New mobility options such as carpooling or car sharing help to cut the number of vehicles on the road and therefore help to reduce fleet carbon footprint.
Every driver contributes to your environmental impact
Small changes can add up to a big difference. And for large fleets in particular, small changes at the individual driver level can have a significant impact on your total fleet carbon footprint. One of the most important things to consider is driver attitude. And this includes attitude towards risk, focus, anticipation, and speed.
At Greater Than, we are passionate about raising awareness of the driver’s own impact on the environment. Every driver can make a difference to CO2 emissions now through safer, cleaner driving behaviors, with no sacrifice needed at the operational level.
Maintenance is a key factor in helping to reduce fleet carbon footprint
Vehicle maintenance is crucial for road safety – and for sustainability. Keeping vehicles well maintained helps to ensure they’re running as fuel efficiently as possible. Tires in particular play an important role in fuel economy since under-inflated tires create more resistance, therefore causing the engine to work harder.
Maintenance also works both ways. Fuel-efficient driving helps to reduce wear-and-tear and extend the vehicle lifecycle. This brings financial benefits and helps to reduce fleet carbon footprint.
It’s easier than you think to manage fleet carbon footprint
At Greater Than, we use the power of AI to convert GPS data into driver climate impact, as a result of driver attitude. To do this, our AI analyzes every second of driving and compares it against billions of previous real-world trips trained with fuel consumption and CO2 impact.
The result is an individual Climate Impact Score for every driver, which measures CO2 savings in grams or %. It can be used with all vehicle types and fuel types, including electric vehicles, making it possible to see the impact of driving attitude on battery consumption and charging frequency.
The Climate Impact Score:
- Provides your fleet with a uniform measure of environmental impact
- Makes it easy to identify drivers most in need of eco-training
- Helps your organization with ESG reporting
To discover more about how to reduce your fleet carbon footprint, please get in touch or book a meeting.
