Most fleets have taken action to reduce their environmental impact despite many not having a formal green policy.

New research, commissioned by Volvo, shows more than two-thirds of fleet do not have an environmental policy while more than half don’t measure their environmental performance.

However, 98% of the 250 fleets in the Volvo DRIVe Report 2010 have taken up environmental initiatives with the popular actions being ‘lowering carbon emissions’, ‘improving fuel efficiency’ and ‘acquiring more efficient vehicles’.

The report’s author, Jonathan Francis, told Fleet News: “Although most fleets don’t have a formal policy, environmental issues have been addressed in various different ways, and we found differences between larger and smaller fleets.

“Part of it relates to who is responsible for looking after the fleet. For example, in smaller fleets where it might be the managing director, there might not be a formal environmental policy for the fleet.

“But the research also shows that 70% of fleets have taken for or more actions to tackle environmental issues.”

Fleet managers believed company car drivers were concerned mainly with the amount of tax they pay on their vehicle, and 10% said employees were seen as fully supportive of the need for and environmental fleet policy.

Although measures had been taken by organisations to reduce the CO2 output of their fleets, the report also warned that future EU rules will also focus on overall air quality, rather than just CO2 emissions.

Peter Rask, Volvo regional president, said: “At Volvo the total environmental performance is central to everything we do, from producing low CO2 cars to reducing their impact over their entire life cycle. We urge fleets to take a broad brush approach to reducing their environmental impact.”

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