Sanofi tells drivers to choose salary sacrifice over company cars

Healthcare firm Sanofi has adopted a policy of encouraging its drivers out of company cars and into Arval’s Ignition salary sacrifice arrangement.

The Reading-based business said the initiative is part of a drive to reduce its CO2 footprint and increase support for its employees.

Usman Khan (pictured), chief financial officer at Sanofi, said: “Our carbon commitment is very important to us and we also wanted to find a way of offering all our employees – not just our job-need car field sales team and our handful of perk fleet drivers – a way of accessing a wide choice of vehicles as a benefit, which helps to open up electric car access and reduce our CO2 emissions in their usage. We had conversations with Arval UK and switching to salary sacrifice seemed like the best route for us."

To date, 131 of the company's 750 employees have taken delivery of a car through the scheme and 49 more have placed orders. To help encourage the adoption of electrified cars, the firm offers £500 towards the cost of a home charger for its field force employees and also has four chargers that are free to use at its head office, which is soon to be expanded to 34.

Jamie Williams, head of Large Corporate Sales at Arval UK, added: “We’ve been working with Sanofi for more than 10 years and have developed a deep understanding of their fleet needs over that time. When they came to us with a desire to reduce fleet emissions while increasing employee satisfaction, Ignition was very much the obvious choice and they are already seeing strong results.

“Following the pandemic, we have seen considerable growth in interest in salary sacrifice. It provides a range of genuine advantages to employers and employees with no real downsides or compromises. With relatively low electric vehicle taxation confirmed until 2028 in the recent Autumn Statement, we’re expecting significant take-up to continue into 2023 and well beyond.”