A FORMER Fleet News Award winner has achieved a major industry first as the only fleet to reach a landmark environmental standard.

Greener fleet certification scheme Motorvate has handed out the first five-star accreditation to Yorkshire Building Society's fleet, which is operated by Mary Blackwell, 2002 Fleet News Fleet Manager of the Year 101–250 vehicles.

Motorvate sets three-year targets for organisations to reduce fleet-related carbon dioxide emissions. Organisations must commit to a 12% reduction in fuel use and 3% reduction in mileage during that time. Stars are awarded as organisations demonstrate progress towards their targets, with a maximum five stars for achieving the targets in full.

Yorkshire Building Society joined the scheme in January 2001 and Blackwell used her fleet management expertise to help the society reduce costs and become a greener organisation.

Motorvate used the firm's annual fuel use and total business mileage as a milestone to set improvement targets, together with a comprehensive review of the current travel policy to determine areas of improvement.

As a result, the 200-vehicle fleet has achieved a 20% reduction in business mileage, down by about 400,000 miles from just over two million miles. It also significantly exceeded its Motorvate target of a 12% reduction in fuel use, by cutting fuel use 13.9% from 257,102 litres a year when it started.

Blackwell said: 'When I became fleet manager for Yorkshire Building Society three years ago, one of my goals was to clean up our company car fleet. For an aspirational user-chooser fleet such as ours, I knew I would need some help.

'Motorvate helped me to focus on how I could achieve a greener fleet by setting targets for reducing CO2 and mileage, by providing consultancy and sound advice in relation to best practice, and by introducing me to other green fleet contacts throughout the industry who could also provide assistance.'

Robert Anderson, senior fleet advisor for Motorvate, presented the award to Blackwell at the building society's headquarters in Bradford last week. Motorvate is run by AEA Technology on behalf of TransportEnergy, a division of the Energy Saving Trust, which works with the Government to improve the quality of the environment.

Funded mainly by the Department for Transport and the Scottish Executive, TransportEnergy works with the transport industry, corporate fleet and public sector.