Which Way to a “green” Car Hire Industry?

The car hire industry has been one of the many favorite targets of environmental advocates for many years. One important allegation is that the use of a for hire means the traveler is yet one more source of carbon emissions, when things could have been environmentally better if the person commuted. But a counter-argument by the industry is that public transport is not always an option, and in rural areas a car hire is the only pill available to swallow.

Some say the car hire industry can do better than argue that a hire car is better and friendlier substitute to owning the car itself. Nevertheless, car ownership is on its way up; if the car hire industry wants the previous argument to be plausible, it will have to work harder at its homework. One reason to be grateful for, just the same is the greener hire cars alongside the gas guzzlers.

This last mentioned step consists of company investment on teams of hybrid and low carbon emission cars, which, thanks to the ads of equally worried car companies, are acknowledged to be way lesser environmental hazards. To give you a picture, a Swedish franchise of a large car hire company sunk its money on four hundred ethanol powered cars. In the United States, over a thousand hybrid cars acquired rounds out the scene for the same firm.

Another campaign on the part of car hire companies is to release information on the carbon emissions from each car in their fleet at the time of hiring. The intended effect of this is that customers will be informed of the hazards of their own eco-unfriendly cars and will solve this by hiring more often than not green cars. Some say this is a major point of improvement in the industry. The pivotal premise here is that all people have some form of environmental conscience that will help them to be more attuned to cars with fewer emissions.

Yet another strategy of the car hire industry towards persuasion is carbon offsetting. The company basically accounts for the sum carbon produced in the form of emissions by the entire company. The goal of a carbon offsetting policy is to make a company carbon neutral through a combination of several strategies.

Yet, the movement towards significant greening in the industry is still far off, so applause for these innovative players in the car hire industry may seem out of place. Moreover, a headache for these companies is that going after eco-friendly policies is usually less cost effective than conventional albeit mediocre tactics. The only relief in all these must be that the the industry can at least claim it is doing its best in offering people the chance to be eco-friendly on the road and the cars that burn less harmful fuels.

Indeed, the car hire industry is now asking itself: where to now? The business has actually entered and forged into all the avenues open to it. A realistic prospect is the case of satellite navigation systems being an added bonus in hire cars to transform trips into a heightened, “sit back and relax” experience. But its yet another smart marketing technique too, in the end.

Tagged as: “Green”, Hire, Industry