How to improve your fleet sustainability: 7 quick tips
Improving your fleet sustainability should be a priority.
More and more fleet businesses are aiming for better sustainability; it is part of the green initiative taken by the UK. At present, the government aims to slash down emission levels (from 1990) by as much as 78% before the dawn of 2035 and go completely carbon-neutral by 2050.
If you haven’t already made plans towards bringing your fleet to a more environment-friendly status, we suggest you speed things up. It’s not only good for the planet, but it will also be good for your business. Sustainability is cost-effective and will help you bring down fuel consumption as well.
Win-win for your business and a safer planet for all!
But it can all be overwhelming if you put it all together at once, and to help ease the burden, we have shared some helpful tips and tricks to get you started right:
1) Make clear, concise goals
When setting goals, be clear about what you want – and it should be something measurable, and when you want to achieve it. This way, you’ll be able to track your performance throughout and adjust the timeline or other expectations accordingly, based on the output you get from your efforts.
Divide your sustainability goals into doable milestones to give you motivation boosts throughout. For instance, if you plan on cutting the emissions from your vehicles by a certain percentage, take baby steps at first, get acquainted with the challenge, and then go for the bigger stages.
You may want to switch to electric cars, for instance, but it won’t happen overnight – make a transitional plan, track your progress, and gradually move towards completing your plan within the timeframe you set in the beginning.
2) Unleash the potential of fleet management systems
In the modern fleet business era, you no longer need to rely on manual data entries for fleet risk management, minimizing fuel wastage, and monitoring your cars. Fleet management systems allow you to do all of this without ever having you leave your office.
With the relevant data, showing the performance of each vehicle, distance travelled, route taken, and so on, you will surely find a way to make things more efficient.
You’ll be able to see the performance efficiency of your fleet and pinpoint areas that need improvement, with regards to sustainability.
3) Initiate training programs
To meet your sustainability goals, you’ll have to change the way your drivers do things. Whether or not you can reduce your fleet emission levels depends heavily on how much your drivers idle your vehicles, whether or not they shift gears efficiently, and the travelling distance.
You must instruct your drivers on how they can drive more safely and efficiently, and still finish their work on time.
Fleet monitoring will help you ensure that they follow through with the revised protocol.
4) Get environment-friendly vehicles
Let’s admit it – there is only so much you can do in terms of reducing the emissions from your fleet vehicles. Some cars are simply too polluting, and if you have a bunch of those in your lot, it’s about time you shifted to something greener.
The perfect solution would be to get electric cars since they are the hype nowadays, and the UK government is seriously considering investing in setting up charge points. Electric cars are being produced en masse, and since they don’t consume fuel and pollute, you can take these cars to clear air zones too.
On top of this, you’ll save a fortune in fuel usage!
5) Be attentive to the maintenance needs of your fleet
Maintenance trouble can not only compromise road safety, it can also increase the level of emissions your vehicles produce. Don’t delay your regular oil changes and other important maintenance checks – the more you put off things, the more they’ll cost you.
Plus, it will ruin your sustainability vision as well.
Just be proactive here, set up reminders if you can’t keep track of things yourself, and take care of maintenance on time.
6) Route optimization
The level of pollution for vehicles also depends on how far they travel. You can always cut down the travel distance for your fleet if you put your mind to it. Fleet tracking solutions allow you to map out optimal routes for all stops, which will not only save time and money but also reduce the miles travelled per day.
This way, you’ll manage to do the same level of work but with fewer resources, especially fuel, and thus contribute to a greener, livable planet.
Plus, you can put all the saved time to better use and get more things done with less!
7) Be flexible with your plan
Things may not necessarily play out the way you expected them to, but that does not mean you should lose hope. Learn to modify your expectations, revisit your timeframe, and so on, based on the results you produce over the course of implementing your sustainability plan.
Maybe achieving zero emissions in 10 years may not work for you because there may be so many cars to replace. No problem: just increase the timeframe.
Or perhaps you can only do so much with your current fleet, in that case, create a transition plan to help you reach a greener position.
Just learn to adapt.
Bottom line
Most people are hesitant to make drastic changes because they like doing business a certain way. But throughout human history, we have seen that unless we adapt, there is no way forward. The global challenges for the future are pretty clear, and climate change makes the top of every list.
Maintaining a livable planet for future generations is one aspect of things (although that is a big deal), the business scene is also changing rapidly – people have certain expectations in terms of sustainability from fleet businesses, and if you want to stay in the game, you must try and meet those expectations.
Better business, better planet – the perfect combination.
Hopefully, this article gave you a better sense of direction regarding sustainability goals and just enough motivation to work towards them!
