Overview
In Europe there has for many years now been a common objective, to reduce the emissions of carbon dioxide from new cars. The Clean Drive Action was a Campaign for increased sale of 'green cars' in Europe. It involved an important target group: car dealers, car rental and car leasing companies for achieving the overall EU objective of 130 grams of fossil CO2/km on average from new car sales to 2012-2015.
The main objectives of the CLEAN DRIVE Project were to:
- show that the participating car dealers could meet the EU-overall target: 130 g CO2/km in average in new sold cars, by 2012 (first step)?
- show that participating car dealers on average doubled the sale of cars that emit under 120 g CO2/km to 2012 (baseline is 2008 = 16 percent of the total sale)
- show the effect of Clean Drive in terms of reduced CO2-emissions and energy consumption as a part of the solution to reach the EU 20 percent energy efficiency goal to 2020 as well as the 10 percent biofuel goal in the transport sector by 2020.
- show an improved Clean Drive Action Model that is both possible to adapt and disseminated all over Europe both during the project time and after the end of the project
The establishment of a Local Action Group with car-dealers was one of the central elements of this project (ten groups with ten actors on average per group, representing nine different EU-countries), as well as to introduce them to working in accordance with the Clean Drive Action Model.
When car dealers become more involved and aware, they will feel more comfortable about discussing environmental issues with their customers, as well as be more confident in recommending and selling more energy efficient cars. A key in this development has been to show that environmental issues go hand in hand with economic interests.
The establishment of a strong national supporting network (nine groups with on average ten actors per group, a group in each participating country) have provided important experience for the project, which has helped the local car-dealers to be successful in their implementation work according to the clean drive action model.
Results
This project produced the following results:
- It increased the awareness of the main target group about environmental issues, the EU overall objectives for lowering emissions and the benefits of selling cleaner vehicles.
- It implementated well planned campaign-activities to inform and train customers to purchase cleaner vehicles.
- It produced evidence that participating car-dealers who successfully implemented the action model were able to meet the overall 120 g CO2/km-objective in new sold cars until 2012.
- It produced evidence that participating car dealers in average will double the share of the total sale of cars that emit under 120 g CO2/km (16% of the total sale in EU-27 2008 is the baseline) until 2012.
Strategy targets
This project contributed to promoting more sustainable development in Europe.