The Fleet News Environment award recognises companies and suppliers that drive initiatives which have a real impact on lowering fleet CO2 emissions.
The 2010 winner, Goodyear, is one of the world’s largest tyre companies and prides itself on initiatives to help the environment and cut fuel consumption.
The company offers two tyres with environmental benefit, the EfficientGrip tyre and the OptiGrip.
Both allow fleets to run tyres down to the 1.6mm legal limit safely with almost unaffected performance and grip.
With no compromise on safety, fleets can replace tyres at 1.6mm with confidence – many have a policy of changing at 2mm – which reduces demand on tyre production.
Emissions are consequently reduced, while fewer tyres also means less waste.
Independent performance tests showed that the Goodyear EfficientGrip provides 13% better rolling resistance, 2% shorter braking distance on wet and dry roads and 1.9% better fuel consumption when compared to the average performance of four leading competitors.
The EfficientGrip tyre has already been approved as Original Equipment by several car manufacturers, including Renault for the new Megane and Mercedes-Benz for the E-Class.
But the tyre offers additional benefits beyond fuel consumption and reduced CO2 emissions – it is 10% lighter than its predecessor and emissions have been reduced during production.
Goodyear has cut the use of solvents in both manufacturing and process maintenance, and developed an environmental management system to go beyond the base-line guidance set through its ISO 14001 programme.
“2010’s brought with it many challenges, “says Trevor Burfield, head of operations at Goodyear-Dunlop.
"Availability has been a particular challenge as the automotive industry as a whole has struggled to meet with demands.”
Goodyear believes cost will continue to be a top priority throughout 2011 for fleets as companies try to reduce mileage to counter the rising cost of fuel.
However, Burfield believes that customers will continue to buy premium products despite tightening budgets.
Goodyear’s high-performance tyre sales, including the EfficientGrip, increased by more than 15% last year, which underlines the growing emphasis on fuel management.
In November, Goodyear launched a campaign to promote EfficientGrip, teaming up with five petrol stations to give motorists £20 of free fuel if they bought its tyres.
The company expects high-performance tyre sales to grow again by double digit figures in 2011.
Another key area for growth this year is winter tyres, particularly within the leasing and consumer markets.
Goodyear has already seen substantial growth thanks to the recent cold snap.
“We sold more winter tyres in November 2010 than all of 2009 put together,” says Burfield.
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