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Going Green in Purple Fashion
CO2 - First Car Rental Fleet
Showing customers the environmental impact of driving, leading South African car rental brand, First Car Rental, lists CO2 emissions for its rental cars on the company’s website under Fleet Mix (or sent by your Sales Area Manager - allowing conscientious drivers to take emissions into account when choosing a rental car. First Car Rental’s CO2 information is currently available to all customers. In the future, we will improve this by adding a quick guide to help users put those emission numbers into context.
As consumers become more aware of their impact on the environment, they’ll increasingly demand information that will help them make better choices. The average CO2 emissions rating is 167 g/km (grams of carbon dioxide per kilometre driven), the lowest being 86 g/km and the highest 470 g/km. A ‘green’ car is a model that has CO2 emissions lower than 150 g/km.
First Car Rental has 9 vehicles in its fleet that have CO2 emissions lower than the ‘acceptable’ 150g/km.
First Car Rental also has one of the top 10 greenest cars in its fleet, the Volvo S40.
Swedish manufacturers Volvo have built an impeccable reputation around automotive safety but are also doing their bit to save the environment with their eco-cars, which run on flexi-fuel. All flexi-fuel car hire vehicles in Sweden use a combination of petrol and bio-ethanol, an eco-friendly fuel made from renewable agricultural feedstocks rather than crude oil, but unfortunately this is not yet widely available in South Africa.
First Car Rental in Mauritius is taking a responsible approach by adopting a carbon reduction strategy with the help of impactChoice. This unit of greenhouse gas emission reduction, which is verified by impactChoice, will enable First Car Rental to achieve carbon neutral status over time. First Car Rental Mauritius is the first car rental company on the island to reduce the emissions produced as a result of vehicle rental.
First Car Rental are looking at offering the Smart Fortwo (Smart Car) at all Gautrain stations, which is the ultimate small car to nip around in. It’s not built to be spacious (for lots of luggage), so it is ideal for business people. The Smart Fortwo diesel is currently the “greenest” production diesel vehicle on the market in terms of CO2 emissions. With 88g/km emissions, this Smart is very clean and easy to park too. |
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Going Green in the Purple Office
A paperless office is a work environment at which the use of paper is eliminated or wisely used. "Going Paperless" saves money, boosts productivity, saves space, makes electronic documentation and information sharing easier and minimises environmental damage. The paperless office concept is not necessarily limited to our offices.
First Car Rental exercises due diligence in managing and storing documents with personally identifiable information, as paperless office systems become more critical.
The paperless office is a First Car Rental philosophy geared towards working with a minimal amount of paper, employing efficient processes and systems that eliminate the need for paper altogether and to convert all forms of documentation to digital form.
First Car Rental took the first step towards reducing its office carbon footprint some six years ago by introducing electronic vouchers - less paper and less fuel in delivering vouchers to clients. Then the company launched an online invoice retrieval portal, eliminating the need to print invoices. The process of scanning all rental documents, while simultaneously streamlining operational procedures to eliminate unnecessary procedural documents followed soon after and today, all First Car Rental documentation is available online.
Surpassing world standards, First Car Rental’s customer service department boasts a successful resolution timeframe of 1.86 days as an average, which includes damage and 3rd party cases. Online communication is powered by Cristil software, making the entire Customer Services division a paperless environment.
Applying speed to the car rental experience, the latest addition to the First Car Rental paperless revolution is the customer recognition software rolled out at 43 branches nationwide. Designed to capture electronic customer profiles with photographs and the relevant legal documentation, this system allows staff to access customer profiles quickly from a central database to complete the car rental process without time-consuming repeat paperwork. Presently 68% reservation intake is fully electronic with no printed vouchers, no sales people on road merely to deliver vouchers, which also reduces our overall use of fuel.
The new software dramatically speeds up the rental process for customers and forms part of a phased approach to a paperless rental agreement, fulfilling our vision of being the first car rental company in South Africa to offer a truly ‘green’ check-out procedure. |
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