Gloucestershire County Council has estimated savings of two tonnes of CO2 a month with Enterprise Car Club, compared to employees commuting in privately-owned cars.

Eight dedicated Enterprise Car Club vehicles are now based at the council’s Shire Hall headquarters in Gloucester and more than 450 of the council’s 2,000 employees have signed up to the programme. The vehicles include two Nissan Leaf electric cars, three Toyota Prius hybrids and three Hyundai i20s.

The introduction of the car club is an extension of a long-term programme where Enterprise Rent-A-Car vehicles have been used to lower business mileage, reduce emissions and improve air quality. 

Enterprise and the council analysed employee journey patterns and usage to establish if car club rental could be part of a better solution than the so called ‘grey fleet’, where drivers use their personal cars for work journeys and claim for the miles driven.  

Gloucestershire County Council’s commissioning officer Will Spendlove said: “We’re developing a comprehensive travel policy for employees to reduce our costs and make our business travel more sustainable.  

“Enterprise was able to analyse the data of how and why our employees travel and use it to design a more efficient, tailored programme to help us move away from the grey fleet. The data analysis demonstrated a car club was a key part of that equation.

“The on-site car club is not only helping us to reduce our risk, but it also encourages our employees to use more sustainable hybrid and electric vehicles. These are most useful for shorter business trips, which are often the ones where employees would use their own cars.

“Enterprise additionally gives us the flexibility to easily add or remove vehicles based on our utilisation. One of the benefits has been the long-term support from Enterprise’s consultants, who have attended and hosted numerous stakeholder meetings, roadshows and other on-site events at Shire Hall. 

“Partnering with Enterprise has helped us to change employee behaviour so they reduce business mileage and travel more efficiently and sustainably.” 

Enterprise Car Club’s managing director Dan Gursel said: “By developing policies and processes to make business travel more manageable and environmentally-friendly, Gloucestershire County Council has been able to improve sustainability and local air quality. It provides employees with a viable alternative to using their own vehicles for work.” 

Pictured: (L) Ben Smith, business development manager at Enterprise; Will Spendlove of Gloucestershire County Council; and Kay Parbat, strategic transportation consultant at Enterprise.