Arval has developed a new five-step methodology to help European fleets transition towards cleaner, greener vehicles.

Sean Sadlier, head of consulting and corporate vehicles at Arval

Dubbed SMaRT – Sustainable Mobility and Responsibility Targets – the new approach builds on latest research by Arval’s Corporate Vehicle Observatory research unit that finds 59% of companies prioritise CO2 emissions in their car policies – rising to 75% of large fleets.

The SMaRT methodology ensures five initial areas are taken into account by Arval when helping clients to build their strategies:

• The changing attitudes towards ‘new’ energies such as hybrid and electric vehicles
• The progressive integration of CSR objectives into fleet strategies
• The rising interest in alternative mobility services
• The deployment of telematics based services (especially in large businesses)
• The significant fleet growth expected in the next three years.

These are then followed up by five further steps, adopting a circular approach.

Step 1: The initial step allows clients to define their future mobility and fleet strategy ambitions, benchmarking with maturity levels and their peers as well as getting concrete advice from Arval Consulting on their specific mobility and fleet profiles and possible strategies going forward.

Step 2: Current fleet analysis. This assesses the current fleet on CSR-orientated KPIs and determines the right replacement strategies for each vehicle.

Step 3: Clients can work out the best match with a powertrain type from an energy perspective with the help of a brand-new SMaRT calculator from Arval. This combines driver profiling and also looks at CSR and TCO (Total Cost of Ownership).

Step 4: Arval then opens up the debate on alternative mobility options that could work for the client, enabling them to become even SMaRTer.

Step 5: Progress towards initial ambitions is measured, allowing the set-up of transition roadmaps and enabling the return to Step 1.

The company said it’s the first lessor in the industry to “proactively offer such a structured and pragmatic approach, whilst ensuring that the implementation is duly supported with the current processes and existing digital tools”.