Leaseplan joins carbon offsetting projects

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  With the Madre de Dios initiative in the Peruvian Amazon, the leading Car-as-a-Service company will initially prevent 1,400 tonnes of CO2 from being released into the atmosphere
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  The agreement also aims to combat unplanned deforestation of forests, fight poverty, and support equal opportunities

LeasePlan, a leading Car as a Service (CaaS) company, is taking a step forward in its fight to reduce its carbon footprint and has decided to join carbon offsetting projects, which have the Decarbonisation Certificate endorsed by the United Nations (UN). In this way, LeasePlan offers its customers the possibility of calculating the CO2 emissions of their fleets, and that these are compensated through the financing of emission reduction projects. Such is the case of the Madre de Dios initiative in the Peruvian Amazon, the tropical rainforest with the greatest biodiversity in the world and which contributes to the stabilisation of the global climate, which will allow LeasePlan, initially, to counteract the emission of 1,400 tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere.

In the words of LeasePlan's CEO, Alberto Sáez, "as companies, we generate unavoidable greenhouse gas emissions. The decisions we make have an impact on the size of our carbon footprint and many of us are reducing it through hard work and commitment. At LeasePlan we are aware that vehicle fleets are a clear source of CO2 emissions, which is why we are progressively decarbonising them. In this sense, Sáez insists that "to reduce our clients' emissions, it is possible to resort to financing projects that mitigate them, through compensation bonds. For this reason, we provide them with carbon credits to determine the number of gases released into the air and offset their emissions. In short, these are international plans that counteract global warming and the negative effects that these emissions have on natural ecosystems and the population.

The compensation of CO2 emissions consists of the voluntary contribution of an economic amount, proportional to the tonnes of CO2 generated, to a project that specifically pursues these two premises:

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  To capture a quantity of tonnes of CO2 equivalent to that generated in our activity, through the implementation of a carbon sink project by reforestation.

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  Avoiding the emission of a quantity of tonnes of CO2 equivalent to that generated in our activity by means of an energy saving or efficiency project, replacing fossil fuels with renewable energies, waste treatment or avoided deforestation.

To this end, LeasePlan is studying various projects to which it can apply and has just selected the Madre de Dios Amazon REDD+ Project, whose activity consists of avoiding the unplanned deforestation of forests that are sustainably managed by the certified logging concessions "Maderera Río Acre SAC" and "Maderera Río Yaverija SAC", in the Peruvian Amazon. In principle, the leading Car-as-a-Service company will prevent 1,400 tonnes of CO2 from being sent into the atmosphere. The agreement, in addition to combating unplanned deforestation of forests, fights poverty and supports equal opportunities.

Rising levels of greenhouse gases are mainly the result of burning fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas. Under the banner of the UN and the Paris Agreement, the countries of the world have come together to take urgent action to reduce emissions for a more liveable planet.

LeasePlan is committed to offset credits, high quality carbon credits that adhere to a strict set of standards. These projects are registered to an internationally recognised independent verification standard such as Verra's Gold Standard, Verra's Verified Carbon Standard (VCS), Social Carbon and Climate, Community and Biodiversity Standards (CCBS), or to standards verified by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and have a serial number for customer assurance.

Last June, LeasePlan joined the UN Global Compact, a worldwide network of leading companies and NGOs committed to building a sustainable future. With this signature, LeasePlan pledged to support the ten principles on human rights, labour, environment, and anti-corruption, and to ensure that these principles are part of its strategy, culture, and daily operations.