Ernst & Young has introduced a holistic mobility approach for employees, including first class train travel and electric vehicles, with the aim of reducing its average carbon emissions to 100g/km by 2015.

Ernst & Young, a client of Fleet Logistics since 2003, operates a fleet of 1,100 cars in Belgium and already has a core CO2 of 122g/km per car.

But, to drive that lower still and meet its four year target, the company has brought in a series of mobility solutions to change its corporate mindset.

These revolve around a series of initiatives to encourage employees to use their cars less frequently, including home working, flexible working hours and the ability to work from any of the firm’s 12 offices throughout Belgium.

At the same time, under a rail lease scheme, employees can take first class train tickets for 60 days during the year, provided they do not use their car on one of those days, at no extra cost to themselves.

Also, as part of the mobility project, employees’ driving behaviours are being tackled in a series of eco-driving courses to encourage employees to drive more frugally and use less fuel.

Employees are scored on their driving performance, with 80% being considered the average mark for a good driver, and then asked to improve their driving if they fall below an acceptable standard.

For those employees who have the most accidents and the highest fuel consumption, a ‘safe driver care box’ is fitted to their car and linked to GPS to monitor their driving performance, their speed and their fuel consumption.

After a trial involving five cars which showed ‘astonishing results’, some 200 cars were now being fitted with the devices, said facilities director (pictured) Ghislain Vanfraechem, who is heading up the project.

“We have ambitious targets to reduce our corporate carbon footprint,” he said. “We want to have an average CO2 of 112g/km by 2012 and to be down to 100g/km by 2015. And while we will achieve that generally by selecting new cars with lower carbon emissions, it has also been necessary to change the corporate mindset.”

Electric vehicles will play an increasing role in achieving the carbon reduction targets. Currently, Ernst & Young has three EVs with another seven on order by the end of September. A further 10 will be ordered in 2011 and another 10 the following year.

Employees can book the cars over the company intranet and use them for urban driving situations if en route to see clients.

The firm has seven charging stations at its head office in Diegem, just outside Brussels, with two more at offices in both Antwerp and Ghent.

“Our vision is that employees will bring their company cars to the office, and then book an electric vehicle if they need to travel into the city centre to visit clients,” said Vanfraechem.

Currently the firm operates SMART electric cars, but is adding to these with models from Nissan, Renault, Peugeot and Citroen over time, as it feels that, with only two seats, the SMART cars are rather limited.

Peter Soliman, chief executive at Fleet Logistics, said:”Ernst & Young is a shining example of a best-in-class, beacon fleet which is trying a very innovative mobility solution approach to reducing its corporate carbon footprint. We are fully supportive of this approach and are committed to helping achieve it.”