Businesses are being let down in their push towards greater green responsibility by the absence of independent CO2 and MPG data available for light commercial vehicles.
While the environmental, political and financial pressure is mounting on car drivers to cut their CO2 output, the same isn’t true in the LCV market, where operators are unable to refer to a standard set of figures as the vehicles aren’t subject to the same tests as cars.
Several manufacturers contacted by BusinessCar said they were able to provide emissions and economy figures for their vehicles, but there are no industry standard independent figures like those set by EU for cars.
The argument is that the figures wouldn’t be an accurate representation because of the varying loads and use vans and pick-ups are subjected to. But the same is true to a lesser extent of cars, with drivers rarely achieving the claimed fuel consumption figures.
“There is no reason why vans cannot be tested on a level playing field by running them unladen and fully loaded, to produce best and worst case scenarios,” said Mark Norman, values services manager at Cap. “That would at least enable the end user to make comparisons between vehicles on the basis of their independently assessed environmental impact.”
The company publishes emissions and economy data for more than 6000 cars, but can only do the same for the UK’s 3035 van derivatives when the manufacturer chooses to supply its own data.
“Many businesses have now stated bold intentions to achieve carbon neutrality,” said Norman. “But until transparency is achieved for all the vehicle emissions they are responsible for they will be unable to take the necessary decisions to achieve it.”
The European Union looked at the issue of LCV CO2 testing in 2001 with a view of adding light commercials to the car testing programme, but no legislation was ever forthcoming.
