Leasing Company of the Year (up to 20,000 Vehicles)
NEW FOR 2023: This award will be presented to the leasing company with up to 20,000 vehicles that can demonstrate policies and an ethos that focuses on sustainability, emissions-reduction and the transition to net zero.
2023 Shortlist
Grosvenor Leasing
Prohire Limited
Lookers Vehicle Solutions
2022 Winner: LeasePlan UK
From 2,661 vehicles in 2021, the LeasePlan Flexible fleet has grown to 4,092 vehicles and is predicted to exceed 6,000 vehicles by end-2022 – a 125 per cent increase. Another new addition for LeasePlan is EV Salary Sacrifice, a new online portal that focuses on helping drivers transition to EVs through a dedicated hub and the ability to add a home ChargePoint, with the cost spread across the contract term. The past year has seen the launch of the EV Education Hub – an online resource providing an EV one-stop shop.
Highly Commended
VWFS Fleet
Lookers Leasing
Ogilvie Fleet
ElectriX
2021 Winner: Lex Autolease
Commended
Tusker
Hitachi Capital Vehicle Solutions
LeasePlan UK
Grosvenor
2020 Winner: Grosvenor Leasing
2019 Winner: LeasePlan
LeasePlan boasts an impressive all-round service in the push to encourage the uptake of EVs, with internal and external educational and promotional campaigns, with four key elements. This has led their clients’ appetite for ULEVs to grow, with the number of EVs and PHEVs (Pron. FEVs) on fleet growing more than 35% year-on-year.
Commended
Tusker
Lex Autolease
Grosvenor
Hitachi
Daimler Fleet Management
2018 Winner: LeasePlan
LeasePlan’s goal is to reach net zero emissions by 2030. Its UK-based pure electric fleet has more than doubled (131.6%) in the past 12 months, contributing to a 77% growth in the take-up of battery EVs across LeasePlan. The average CO2 of vehicles currently in delivery is 106.2g/km for cars and 161.2g/km for vans. Among other initiatives, a ZEV ‘try-before-buy’ option is planned for clients in 2019.
Commended
Daimler Fleet Management
Part of the Mercedes-Benz Group, Daimler Fleet Management offers a range of services from full service-leasing through fleet management to mobility solutions. The company works with preferred partners from all backgrounds and industries. Earlier this year, it secured a place on NHS Scotland’s framework agreement to provide vehicles to staff, both individually and on a pool basis. Expert financial, legislative and environmental analysis is provided in its fleet reviews.
Drive Electric
Drive Electric has 10 years of experience in helping businesses integrate electric vehicles within their fleet. In 2015, the company delivered the pioneering research project, My Electric Avenue, which explored new technology to protect the UK’s power network from EV overload. So far, Drive Electric has delivered more than 1,200 ultra-low emissions vehicles without a single return.
Lex Autolease
Lex Autolease is launching a £1million fund to drive EV adoption, with the first 1,000 customers to sign up for a pure EV from January 2019 benefiting from a £1,000 contribution. The company believes the move could increase the total number of pure EVs registered next year by around 8 per cent and will help it double the size of its pure electric fleet and help its customers achieve 25 million zero tailpipe emission miles over the next five years.
Alphabet
Alphabet’s recent innovations in e-Mobility include the new Electrification Potential Analysis (EPA) fleet consultancy tool and the introduction of e-Corporate CarSharing with AlphaCity. A long-term advocate of plug-in vehicles, Alphabet’s Electrification Potential Analysis analyses journey patterns and real-world fuel consumption, showing not only where ULEVs can work, but presenting a detailed cost analysis.
Grosvenor Leasing
Grosvenor Leasing has made significant investment to ensure it can offer effective ‘green’ support for its clients. By training up a key member of its team to become the green fleet specialist, Grosvenor Leasing has invested in an individual whose sole job role is to understand, interpret and advise clients in areas such as Government policy, taxation, ULEVs and EVs, charging infrastructure, the financial implications of going green and a whole host of other areas. Its 0Zone solution offers help with the cultural change involved in encouraging drivers into a new era of company vehicle
2017 Winner: Lex Autolease
Responsible for the fleet management of over 382,000 cars and vans in the UK, Lex Autolease has a history of promoting ultra-low and zero emission vehicles. As early adopters of alternatively fuelled vehicles from niche manufacturers such as Modec and Ashwoods, Lex’s “plug in” fleet has grown from three Nissan Leafs in Q1 2011 to over 10,000 vehicles. Traditionally fuelled cars average CO2 emissions of just 114g/km. Customers are continuously informed of the latest developments through guides and white papers, training sessions, customer meetings and on site roadshows. Lex recently helped BAE Systems replace a significant proportion of their diesel fleet at Portsmouth Naval Base with electric vans, with telematics helping to determine the number of electric vehicles that could be deployed (48 in total), the optimal number of charge points and the best locations for them. This all enabled BAE Systems to replace nearly 45% of their diesel fleet with pure EVs, with predicted cost savings of £360,000 over the next 2 years. Full charging solutions are offered via charge partner podPOINT.
Commended
Tusker
Tusker was the first to launch a salary sacrifice scheme in the UK back in 2008 after it identified the opportunity from an old tax case. Since then, the company has focussed on salary sacrifice as its core product, with the emphasis on customer services. Average emissions on Tusker’s scheme are just 101g/km. Every car it puts on the road is carbon neutral based on the chosen cars CO2 emissions, mileage and agreement length. Since launching this initiative three years ago, Tusker has offset 107,397 tons of carbon against various Verified Carbon Standard offsetting projects. Based on current fleet size projections of 32,109, by 2018 Tusker expects this to total nearly 200,000 tons. Tusker’s CEO has met with Government officials, Ministers and policy developers over 65 times to provide advice about the future of salary sacrifice car schemes, campaigning for ULEVs to be protected. Its challenge for the future is to ensure continued growth to meet demand, while maintaining its five-star Trustpilot rating and 97% customer satisfaction level.
Grosvenor Leasing
Over the last 8 years, Grosvenor Leasing has reduced its average CO2 emissions by 25%, and now averages 108 g/km across a fleet of which a quarter of are commercial vehicles. In 2017 Grosvenor launched 0Zone – a standalone service to advise, help and support its customers through the transition of becoming a zero or low emission fleet operator. Following its launch, it quickly became a significant brand within the Grosvenor Group, with a Green Fleet Specialist appointed to head up the service. Close ties were formed with the Energy Saving Trust, with workshops to educate all members of the customer-facing team at Grosvenor about how to help clients move to ULEVs and EVs. The sales, account management and customer services teams are now making it a fundamental part of their activity to talk to fleet operators about their plans for going green. To communicate the green message, Grosvenor launched a newsletter focusing on green issues which goes out to 9,000 large and small fleets. A directors briefing report provides a high level analysis of why ‘now’ its important to change vehicle choice lists and looks at the pace of change. A new online vehicle comparison and selection system for drivers encourages greener choices.
2016 Winner: Alphabet
Almost 10 per cent of the 23,109 plug-in grant-eligible cars and vans registered in the first eight months of 2016 are funded by or leased from Alphabet. Last year its electric fleet grew by 385 per cent and in August this year reached a total of 5,085 EVs and PHEVs. Alphabet’s multi-user AlphaCity CarSharing vehicles will cover more than one million miles, with each car being shared by an average of 27 individual ‘mobility users’ via RFID cards. Improvements to AlphaCity include a zero emission Electric Vehicle version using the BMW i3. To better serve the 30 per cent of its customers that don’t have a dedicated fleet manager, Alphabet has developed a range of outsourced products and services which enable its customers to focus on their core business while delivering greater flexibility and more efficient mobility for their employees. The company has also gained an Investors in People Silver Award – one of the few to achieve this at the first time of application. Independent surveys recorded a 2.2 per cent increase in overall customer satisfaction and a 2.4 per cent increase in customer loyalty.
Commended
Fleetdrive Electric
Fleetdrive have been delivering added-value fleet management solutions since 1994. In 2011 the Fleetdrive Electric division was established to deliver expertise at the forefront of the market for ULEVs in the fleet sector. Fleetdrive quickly identified that a significant barrier to businesses adopting EV technology is a lack of confidence in the product’s viability. It therefore introduced an EV flexi-lease service which enables organisations to conduct trials, testing and monitoring within practical applications to ensure suitability, without the need to commit beyond a 30-day period. Fleetdrive has 572 PHEV’s on fleet, representing 29 per cent of the total. As well as generating cost-savings for their clients of well over £500,000 each year in fuel-savings alone, they also result in a combined CO2 reduction of 1132 tonnes p.a. Fleetdrive Electric’s dedication to promoting EVs within the fleet sector has resulted in the successful conversion of companies such as Nestle, Brompton Bicycles and Gnewt Cargo to becoming serious EV users and an inspiration to others.
Leaseplan/Automotive Leasing
The fleet management apps and portals that came out of Leaspeplan’s Digital Transformation programme in 2015 have empowered drivers to manage their own vehicles and provide on-demand insight to fleet decision-makers. This, combined with an enhanced telematics solution, ensures that drivers benefit from a set of tools that can deliver genuine efficiency gains. Leaseplan’s SwopCar car sharing solution is suited to a community of drivers within an organisation who can use an online reservation system to access a vehicle for a specified period. SwopCar’s smart technology tracks each vehicle, monitoring its fuel level, maintenance and cleanliness, automatically booking and carrying out relevant services. From the fleet manager’s perspective, usage data and other insights can also be tracked and costs can be allocated to departments or even individual employees. SwopCar can therefore not only deliver environmental benefits, but also improvements in employee engagement. Five per cent of Leaseplan’s fleet are ultra low emssion, but as adoption still presents challenges for customers, Leaseplan has sought to drive down fleet emissions through a number of other measures.
2015 Winner: Automotive Leasing
Automotive Leasing has an all-encompassing “green” approach to the leasing of vehicles that also includes driver training, the introduction of a telematics system to influence driver behaviour and even a scheme that allows customers to use electric cars, free, for 6 months.
Commended
Alphabet
Lex Autolease
Fleetdrive Electric
Zenith
Leasedrive Group