It's Not Easy Going Green

Green is a hot topic in the realm of fleet management with regards to reducing the environmental impact of service vehicles. However, as is the case with most initiatives that do not directly or immediately tie back to improved profitability, adoption levels tend to lag the rhetoric. In Aberdeen's recent survey for this month's benchmark report, Improving Productivity and Profitability through Service Fleet Management, only 9% of respondents indicated that the need to reduce the environmental impact of their vehicles was a key pressure driving fleet management initiatives (Figure 1). In fact, only a third of respondents indicated that they actually have a "green fleet" initiative in place.

There are a number of drivers that could have impact on the decisions of service organizations to adopt green initiatives in their efforts to reduce vehicle emissions and the overall environmental impact of service fleets. Two of the top four drivers identified by respondent firms are in the form of mandates or regulations, which runs somewhat contradictory to the spirit of the word "initiative" (Figure 2). For example, 41% of respondents indicated that federal regulations, if put in place, would have the most significant effect on the adoption of green initiatives, followed closely by corporate social responsibility mandates and state government regulations.