Enterprise Rent-A-Car, National, Alamo, Begin Carbon Offset Program

Enterprise Rent-A-Car, National Car Rental and Alamo Rent A Car, owned by the Taylor family of St. Louis, announced they will implement a customer carbon offset program.

The 20-25 million customers of the three companies will be offered the opportunity to offset CO2 emissions generated by their car rentals. By opting in during the reservation process to pay $1.25 per rental, customers can fund certified offset projects that work to remove CO2 from the atmosphere.

Customer offset purchases will be matched by the company dollar-for-dollar up to $1 million. Beginning in January 2008, the program will be offered at participating locations in the U.S. and Canada; it will be extended to Enterprise’s European customers in mid-2008.

TerraPass will administer the program funded by customers’ offset purchases. Customers will be able to purchase their carbon offsets while booking their reservations through call-in reservation centers or online.

Terrapass says that if every renter opts into the program, along with the company match, about half the carbon produced by the combined Enterprise, National and Alamo fleet could be offset.

The group has the world’s largest fleet of fuel-efficient vehicles – more than 440,000 cars in the combined Enterprise, National and Alamo worldwide fleet average a highway fuel efficiency rating of 28 mpg or better, and more than 237,000 average at least 32 mpg. In addition, 264,000 have earned the U.S. EPA’s SmartWay certification mark – a distinction the EPA grants to vehicles that emit relatively low levels of both regulated pollutants and greenhouse gases such as CO2.

They also have 54,000 cars and trucks that have the ability to burn E85 and 4,000-5,000 hybrid vehicles. Nationally, Enterprise is actively deploying as many of its FlexFuel vehicles as possible near E85 fueling stations in order to build consumer awareness and increase the number of cars being fueled with E85, which according to the U.S. EPA can reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by up to 20 percent.

Research – In February 2007, the Taylor family gave $25 million to create the Enterprise Rent-A-Car Institute for Renewable Fuels at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, one of the world’s foremost plant research centers. The institute works to develop acceptable alternatives to finite fossil fuels by finding new ways to create fuel from renewable, reliable plant sources.

Conservation – The Enterprise Rent-A-Car Foundation is funding the planting of 50 million trees over the next 50 years at a total cost of $50 million through the 50 Million Tree Pledge, a public/private/non-profit partnership with The National Arbor Day Foundation and the U.S. Forest Service. The trees are being planted on public lands in the U.S., Canada and Europe.