Lex Autolease has discovered that the average company vehicle comfortably came in beneath the industry's 'magic' tax barrier before April's new CO2-based tax regime came into force.

A study of the customer fleet during 2008 found that the average CO2 figure per vehicle was 158g/km - below the 161g/km benchmark for higher allowances on corporation tax.

This year, the figure has fallen further to 152g/km across Lex Autolease's entire fleet of 350,000 vehicles.

"Our customers have really stepped up to the green mark by working with us to lower CO2, influence employee choices and drive down overall costs on their fleet,” explained Steve Osborne, head of fleet management at Lex Autolease.

“We have supplied over 30,000 vehicles to companies across the UK with emissions of 120g/km or less and these are the real standard bearers.”

Lex Autolease expects the downward trend to continue as the Government's proposed 2020 target to reduce car emissions comes ever closer. In a decade's time all new vehicles will need to emit just 95g/km of CO2 to comply with this legislation, which is a 40% reduction on 2007 levels.

Osborne added: "Only a handful of the models currently available would meet that target today, but we will gradually get closer as new technologies and alternative fuels are introduced.”