THE AGENCY which keeps Britain's government on the road is celebrating an outstanding performance in the first European-wide Green Fleet Awards.
The Government Car and Despatch Agency's manager Ben Davis was the only UK entrant commended by judges of the public sector European Fleet Manager of the Year award.
At the ceremony in Brussels in June, the agency was also among seven public service organisations from across the EC whose efforts to cut both fuel consumption and CO2 emissions earned them a place among the runners-up for the prestigious title of European Public Sector Fleet of the Year.
"We have always known we had a good story to tell in the UK but it was great to see how our work to minimise our impact on the environment compared to that of our European peers," said agency fleet manager Ben Davis.
In just over three years the agency has transformed its 172-strong pool of government vehicles into one of the greenest car fleets in the UK. It has doubled the number of low-emission diesel cars it runs but, most impressively, 60 percent of its cars are now 'cleaner' hybrid or LPG models.
In January 2005, almost eight out of every 10 of its cars ran on petrol. By March 2008 petrol-driven cars had been cut to 16 percent of the fleet - fewer than two in ten. The average engine size of the fleet has also been reduced to 1741cc from 2247cc four years ago.
The agency's tailpipe emissions have been cut by more than a third, from 232g/km CO2 in 2004/5 to 145g/km in 2007/8. The GCDA is already close to the government's own deadline of a maximum of 130g CO2/km emissions by 2012.
