Reducing your vehicle emissions

How to choose low-emission vehicles

If your business has a fleet of vehicles, you could reduce emissions significantly and save costs by choosing environmentally-friendly vehicles.

Generally, newer and smaller vehicles will tend to use less fuel and emit fewer harmful emissions.

Petrol and diesel engines have different effects on the environment. Diesel engines generally produce less CO2 but emit more air pollutants than petrol engines. As a general rule, if you intend to use the vehicle for long-distance or motorway driving then consider a diesel engine for fuel efficiency and lower CO2 emissions. If the vehicle will be used more in urban areas, where air quality is a greater consideration, consider a fuel-efficient petrol engine.

There are several business benefits of choosing lower-emissions vehicles. These include tax breaks, lower running costs and reduced environmental impact - see the benefits of reducing your vehicle emissions.

Before investing in new or second-hand vehicles you should check their CO2 emission levels.

Environmental performance varies within each class. You could reduce your CO2 emissions and cut fuel bills by up to 25 per cent simply by choosing the most efficient vehicle in each class.

Look at the fuel economy label on new cars. This will indicate the emissions, running costs and fuel consumption for the make and model.

You could also consider the benefits of alternatively-powered vehicles, such as cars that run on electricity - see use alternatively-powered vehicles.