Financial and professional services industry fleets: The key trends to know
This year’s Industry Fleet Sustainability Ranking looks at eight different industries in Europe, diving deep into the stand-out fleet trends from the past couple of years.
This year’s Industry Fleet Sustainability Ranking looks at eight different industries in Europe, diving deep into the stand-out fleet trends from the past couple of years. To create the sustainability ranking, we perform in-depth benchmarking on each industry. Detailed reports for six of the target industries are also available to download.
In the fourth blog of our series exploring sustainability in industry fleets, we look at the financial and professional services industry in Europe and how its fleets have changed in recent years. For more insights, download the full benchmark report!
Coming out on top in 2021
The SUV-C1 segment (i.e., compact, non-premium cars) took the top spot as the most popular car segment in the financial and professional services industry – increasing its fleet share by eight percentage points in one year, and moving up from fourth to first position.
Overall, SUVs continue to gain popularity, increasing their fleet share from 28% in 2019 to 41% in 2021. This is in spite of the SUV-B1 segment (volume subcompact SUVs) decreasing by seven percentage points in fleet share over the same time.
The title of the most popular car model in the industry in 2021 was taken by the Renault Captur. Renault is also the most popular brand overall in financial and professional services fleets, with three car models placing in the top five. The Tesla Model 3 has seen the largest decrease in popularity, plummeting from its position as 2019’s number-one car model to tenth place in 2021.
Renault Captur
Renault Captur
Renault Clio
Renault Clio
Mercedes Benz A-Class
Mercedes Benz A-Class
Battery electric vehicles double fleet share since 2019 …
Hybrid vehicles, plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) and battery electric vehicles (BEVs) are significantly increasing their fleet shares every year within the financial and professional services industry. Given the wide range of pressures companies are facing to reduce fleet CO2 emissions, this is not surprising – but it is good news!
Diesel and petrol cars seem to be decreasing their fleet share each year: between 2019 and 2021, diesel declined by 16.5 percentage points, and petrol by 10 percentage points. Financial and professional services saw a much larger decline in petrol vehicles compared with the other industries benchmarked as part of the Industry Fleet Sustainability Ranking 2021, where either the decline was smaller or petrol’s share remained stable.
... led by the Netherlands and the UK
At the country level, it is encouraging to see that almost all countries increased the share of BEVs in their financial and professional services fleets (although there was variation between countries). The Netherlands and the UK had the largest increases in BEV fleet share in 2021. BEVs reached a fleet share of 51.6% in the financial and professional services industry in the Netherlands, and a 32.2% share in the UK. Austria, Germany and Italy also saw notable growth in electric vehicle adoption during 2021.
Average CO2 emissions from fleets are falling
The average CO2 emissions for the financial and professional services industry in Europe are 94.9 grams per kilometre. However, the Netherlands, Portugal and the UK boast average CO2 emissions well below the industry standard, due to the higher shares of BEVs, hybrids and PHEVs in their fleets.
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Going electric – with room for improvement
Europe’s financial and professional services industry is moving away from diesel vehicles towards more sustainable powertrains like BEVs, PHEVs and hybrids. However, if the industry is to become more sustainable across the board, fleet electrification needs to speed up in countries like Austria and Poland, where diesel and petrol cars still reign supreme.
