Green fleet advice cuts carbon footprint

Property and infrastructure support services specialist, Europa, has been able to cut the carbon footprint of its team working with utilities giant United Utilities - thanks to green fleet advice from its fleet management provider, Fleet Alliance.

Fleet Alliance manages the 350-strong vehicle fleet at Europa and responded to a request from the client to reduce the carbon footprint of the team which provides United Utilities with total facilities management.

Fleet Alliance recommended and sourced two new Skoda Octavia Estate Greenline II 1.6 TDI models for the United Utilities team, which have considerably reduced the environmental impact by offering 50% lower carbon emissions and vastly improved fuel consumption over the cars they replaced.

The new Greenline II 1.6 TDI models have carbon emissions of 107g/km and average fuel consumption of 69.8mpg through various fuel-saving technologies. The outgoing cars had CO2 emissions of up to 164 g/km and achieved up to 30mpg less.

Martin Brown, managing director at Fleet Alliance said: "We have devised a fleet policy for Europa that has considerably reduced its carbon footprint by selecting some of the cleanest, greenest models available.

"In line with that policy, the new Skoda Octavia Estate Greenline II models provide an exceptional green performance in terms of reduced carbon emissions and fuel consumption and were an ideal choice to meet Europa’s environmental objectives."

Russell Bate, Europa yechnical services manager, said: "As part of our contract with United Utilities we are constantly considering ways in which we can improve performance and efficiency and these new vehicles provide the perfect sustainable solution to our transport requirements, offering excellent fuel consumption whilst producing very low CO2 emissions."

Gillian Hayes, United Utilities property manager, added: "We work closely with our suppliers to encourage sustainable working practices. It’s great to see that Europa is driving down carbon emissions with these new eco-friendly vehicles."

United Utilities owns and operates the water and wastewater network in the North West of England, providing services to nearly seven million people and supplying three million households and over 200,000 business premises.