With the help of Hitachi Capital Vehicle Solutions, which provides contract hire with maintenance for the 3,442-strong fleet, the Environment Agency has reduced its average fleet CO2 figure to 115g/km in the last year – a fall of nearly 10%. This compares to the UK average figure of 133.1g/km in the latest SMMT figures.

And the Environment Agency’s fall in average fleet emissions is set to continue as new cars being added to the fleet have an average CO2 of just 106g/km, a fall of 15g/km over the past year.

Dale Eynon, the Environment Agency’s head of fleet operations, says that looking at reducing emissions and the size of the company’s vehicle fleet is a key focus.

‘We encourage the majority of our employees to look at whether they can use public transport or phone conferencing first before making a car journey,’ he said.

‘BT Live Meeting which adds a visual element to audio conferencing is proving very beneficial to our employees around the country as it cuts down the need to travel but still keeps us in touch with colleagues and external suppliers.

‘Our fleet has reduced by 11% or 500 vehicles over the past year, but we still keep looking at new ways of reducing our impact on the environment.’

Currently Eynon and his team are trialling electric vehicles and plug in hybrids on its pool car fleet, as well as alternative fuels such as bio fuels. He is also looking at the positive impact of telematics on reduced fuel use and believes petrol engines now make more sense to fleets.

‘Some of the new petrol engine engines being launched are capable of 50mpg and with unleaded still a few pence per litre cheaper than diesel we will definitely be adding more petrols to our fleet over the coming months, especially for the low mileage users,’ said Eynon.

‘Currently our small car CO2 emissions limit is 100g/km and in the next couple of years it would be good to see the total fleet average closer to that figure,’ he added.