The majority of fleets with CO2 emission caps on their vehicles are only setting the limit at 160g/km, while at least 38.5% of fleets don’t have a CO2 cap whatsoever and a further 22.9% didn’t know if their company had a limit, according to exclusive research for BusinessCar carried out by Lex Autolease, the UK’s largest leasing company.

Of those company drivers that knew their firm had a CO2 cap in place, 65.9% said it was at 160g/km, while only 6.8% were at 120g/km and 2.3% at 100g/km. A quarter of drivers had caps set at other levels.

“I’m a glass half-full man – I’m pleased that there are 40% that have introduced CO2 caps,” declared Lex Autolease’s strategic fleet consultancy principle consultant Chris Chandler. “The 160g/km was the one disappointment, but I’d caveat that with on the face of it it’s disappointing, but 160g/km is the obvious place to put a cap because of the writing-down and lease rental benefits.”

Chandler said he would have hoped to see the dominant cap moving downwards. “I would have liked to see more progress, maybe down to 150g/km or 145g/km,” he said, although admitting that the 160g/km answers may have included those fleets with graded caps up to 160g/km.

Regarding the lack of limits at 120g/km, Chandler said education may still be an issue. “I think some people realise there are cars below 120g/km, but don’t realise you can get an Audi A4 or BMW 5-series,” he commented. “We typically review caps or whole-life costs for key customers for that reason, and when we present back we show a basket of vehicles that now fall into that level.”

However, Chandler was basically upbeat about the results. “It’s excellent that the message has got through – for a long time we’ve been talking and we’re now seeing wholesale action and a focus on environment and costs, because let’s make no bones about it, CO2 reduction has a heavy cost input – it’s not all about the environment,” he said.

“CO2 links to fuel economy and tax on CO2, it’s the way that the system was set up to work and it’s doing it.”

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