As drivers and car and van fleet operators get ever more concerned about environmental issues, a new breed of car and van hire business is emerging; green vehicle hire.

The last few years have seen several green car and van hire businesses appear in the UK rental market and the trend looks set to continue – with major hire operators like Hertz also now marketing green car hire.

While environmentally-friendly car and van rental is certainly a worthwhile goal, I must admit to some uncertainty about what it actually means – after all, most of these vehicles are still running on petroleum-based fuels and are still occupying a space on our crowded roads.

To satisfy my curiosity and cure my ignorance, I decided to look into the concept of eco-friendly vehicle hire a little more closely to find out what green vehicle hire companies are really doing to help the environment.

The approach I took was to search the internet for UK hire companies advertising themselves as green, or as offering green/eco-friendly vehicle hire. I then tried to ascertain from their websites what it is they do to make a positive contribution to the environment. Here’s what I found – these are taken from a number of different companies – no one company does all of this, although some come close:

• Only using vehicles that are exempt from the London Congestion Charge
• Providing carbon-neutral vehicles
• Offering hybrid/electric cars and vans
• Purchasing carbon offsets to equal the emissions from their rental vehicles
• Making donations to environmental charities/education schemes
• Offering hire vans and cars that run on 100% biodiesel
• Running their business in a eco-friendly manner – for example, buying electricity generated from a renewable source, strict recycling, uprated building insulation, etc.
• Only providing vehicles with the lowest CO2 emissions ratings in their class

As you can see, there are a number of truly worthwhile approaches to car and van hire in the list above – plus a few that are hard to put a value on.

I don’t think there is any doubt that the vehicle rental industry has a role to play in protecting the environment; their short fleet renewal cycles should also mean that they start with an inbuilt advantage over most vehicle operators. Always operating new vehicles should mean that you automatically benefit from the latest low emissions and fuel-saving technology – even without trying!

It’s good to see that some companies are going a stage further in trying to reduce their fleet’s impact on the environment – but if you are considering green van or car hire, make sure you understand exactly what eco-benefits you are getting for your money, as companies’ approaches do vary widely.