News

Driving with Carbon care!
Sandicliffe Motors offers customers a route to offset carbon emmissions

Wednesday 09th January 2008

Sandicliffe Motor Group has become one of the first major independent motor retail groups to directly offer customers the opportunity to calculate and offset the carbon they generate from driving their cars.

The East Midlands family owned motor group has announced a link with Climate Care – the organisation which makes CO2 reductions on behalf of individuals and companies - to enable customers to calculate and offset their annual vehicle emissions via the Sandicliffe website.

Available via http://www.sandicliffe.co.uk/environment.aspx, the Climate Care Carbon Calculator allows drivers to calculate how many tonnes of CO² they produce per year from driving by entering the specification of their car and the average number of miles driven each year. Customers can then directly make payments towards Climate Care’s dedicated environmental projects to directly offset their own emissions.

For example, a standard Ford Focus that travels 12,000 miles per year with an average fuel economy of 30 MPG would produce 4.2 tonnes of CO². The cost to offset this CO², through environmental schemes by Climate Care would be £31.50.

Climate Care is a service that helps individuals and organisations to balance the damage they do to the climate. It does this by ‘offsetting’ greenhouse gas emissions, such as CO2, from activities by reducing an equivalent amount of CO2 on your behalf. Reductions are made through a range of projects in renewable energy, energy efficiency and rainforest restoration which not only fight climate change but bring benefits to communities round the world.

Paul Woodhouse , Director of Sandicliffe, who heads the group’s eco-drive campaign said: "We’re one of the first independent UK motor retailers to offer a carbon offsetting service in partnership with Climate Care. The environmental impact of motoring is an issue that has become very prevalent over the last few years and we were delighted to offer our customers a quick and easy way to offset the carbon they generate through driving."

Earlier this year Sandicliffe became the first motor retailer in the UK to launch a company-wide eco-manifesto, including reducing carbon emissions from its own day-to-day operations and providing customer s with information on the environmental impact of the cars on sale.

As part of the campaign Sandicliffe i s working with The National Forest to plant a tree for every car sold, to help neutralise the CO² generated. Last year this figure totalled over 9,000 vehicles.

Sandicliffe Motor Group is one of the country 's largest Ford Retail Groups, with a total of eight dealerships in the East Midlands plus Suzuki, Mazda, Kia, Chevrolet and servicing for MG Rover owners.

To find out more about Climate Care visit www.climatecare.org.