1:16 pm, December 12, 2022
With the dust just settling on the Cop27 global climate summit, the need for individuals, companies and governments to tackle climate change seriously has never been more in the spotlight.
But how can the automotive industry and wider motor trade make a positive change on pressing global issues?
The latest Car Dealer Live – available at the top of this story – explores just that.
The show features Auto Trader director Ian Plummer, founder and managing director of The Carbon Literacy Project, David Coleman, and Lookers’ chief operating officer Duncan McPhee, speaking about why and how dealers can make a difference.
Auto Trader teamed up with The Carbon Literacy Project just over a year ago to create an Automotive Carbon Literacy Toolkit.
It has been developed in collaboration with a number of carmakers and dealer groups, including Lookers, and is designed to help car dealers make their first steps to reducing their carbon footprints.
‘Carbon Literacy actually empowers people,’ Coleman said. ‘Very often initiatives have to come from management and come down in the organisations, but Carbon Literacy is not done by the green specialist, it’s done by everybody in an organisation.
‘The idea is to empower everybody in an organisation, so they look around and think, “Well, I can do this bit” – perhaps it’s turning off the lights in the workshop after everyone has gone home. Everybody in the organisation starts to become, if you like, a carbon champion, and save carbon and save money and do better things.’
But with businesses facing ever increasing costs, employing green measures could be seen as an unnecessary drain on finances, surely?
Auto Trader and The Carbon Literacy Project believe dealers can make little changes for the better that don’t always have to cost vast sums of money – and the toolkit is designed to help in this regard.
‘This is one of those rare opportunities where we can do the right thing for our people and for the planet,’ said Plummer. ‘This is exactly the right thing we should be doing for our businesses – we shouldn’t be thinking of these things as competing. The planet will pocket – these things should go hand in hand.’
Lookers’ chief operating officer, Duncan McPhee, explained how the listed dealer group has been using the toolkit and making changes for the better.
‘We’ve got a big business and we sell a lot of vehicles that hit the road,’ he said. ‘What can we do? There’s a responsibility element – for our colleagues now and in the future – and a reputation element – we want to be doing the right thing for the environment. There is of course a cost and commercial element too.
‘But it’s very exciting. When you think about the cultural element, we’ve got 6,500 people we can help with increasing awareness and action all together.
‘The Carbon Literacy Project in conjunction with Auto Trader is a great springboard for us to really start to accelerate what we are doing.
‘We’ve now got a couple of hundred ‘Carbon Ninjas’, as we call them, and we’ve taken a number of initiatives. One, which is actually very simple, is called ‘The Big Switch Off’ which is just switching stuff off.
‘As a result of this, we have seen a 10 per cent reduction in our electricity usage and a 20 per cent reduction in gas, which equates to around a quarter to a half million pounds saving year to date.’
Other topics discussed in the show were:
- What impact can car dealers have on reducing their carbon footprint?
- Why the car industry should be taking the issue more seriously
- What is the toolkit and how does it work?
If you’re a car dealer and want to learn more about The Carbon Literacy Project, full details are given on how to find out more information in the video posted at the top of this story
