Archant is a 160-year-old privately owned publisher of regional newspapers, magazines, contract printing and e-publishing, with a head office in Norwich, employing 2,000 people throughout England and an annual turnover of more than £145 million.

The Archant fleet is a mixture of relatively low mileage petrol and diesel job need cars, which are provided through a solus arrangement with Vauxhall and are predominantly Astra models, together with perk cars for senior managers with an open choice. The fleet is operated on a 48-month/80,000-mile replacement cycle.

On CLM's recommendation, the whole job need fleet is moving to diesel with the intention of driving down the current CO2 emission levels from the current average of 146g/km to around 118g/km.

This is the latest in a series of green initiatives made over the last year by Archant, which is keen to reduce the company's corporate carbon footprint. Archant drivers will be incentivised by having their Benefit-in-Kind tax bills paid by the company if they downsize from the benchmark Astra 1.7 CDTi Life to the Corsa 1.3 EcoFlex, which has emissions of just 98g/km. The switch to diesel across the fleet will also help significantly in lowering carbon emissions.

At the same time, CLM is introducing its competitive tendering Contract Management solution, which selects the lowest monthly rentals for each new car on the fleet from a panel of preferred leasing suppliers. This has been proven to reduce acquisition costs within its existing clients by around 8-10%.

Another area of cost saving will be that of service, maintenance and repair and, at CLM's recommendation, Archant will switch from fixed cost maintenance to a pay-as-you-go SMR profile, with CLM providing maintenance management across the fleet. This should produce an anticipated saving of around 12% over fixed maintenance costs.

All administration of the Archant fleet, including vehicle reallocation and invoice management, will be handled by a dedicated CLM fleet manager, Becky Messenger, who whilst based at the CLM offices in Newport Pagnell, will be 100% focused on managing and coordinating the Archant fleet.

CLM is being incentivised to generate cost savings for Archant by, in addition to a monthly management fee recharged at cost, the opportunity to take a profit share from those savings generated in the key areas identified, specifically vehicle acquisition and maintenance management.

Archant's head of group procurement and sustainability, Greg Parton, said that the decision to select CLM had been a straightforward one.

'There were two things that really impressed us about CLM. One was their competence across all areas of fleet management. The other was their appetite to be financially incentivised to work closely with us to reduce operating costs. The more efficient they are on our behalf, the greater their share of the profits,' he said.