Greenest Car Maker Cleans Up

On the day when Margaret Beckett announced the government will miss their own CO2 targets, Honda UK staff are getting even greener.

Today marks the launch of Honda UK "Green Forum" an initiative aimed to make all employees more environmentally responsible.

On entering the headquarters at Langley, employees came face to face with one day's rubbish from the building - enough to fill an entire parking space. "Even though we are already recycling many things we wanted to make people aware of just how much rubbish they are still creating," explains Faye Burton, Environmental Manager for HUK.

When they got to their desks employees noticed their bins had been removed. Instead, the "Green Forum" had installed on each floor a recycling station where all rubbish can be separated by type – which should reduce waste by over 75%.

Staff were also given a free lunch if they came to work by any way that reduced CO2 be it bike, train, walking or car sharing.

Other initiatives being developed are ‘intelligent lighting’ that only switches itself on when people are in the room (featured in Honda’s IMA advertisement), paper usage reduction schemes (employees will be sending one another electronic Christmas cards this year) and using renewable energy to power the office.

"Nothing is off the Agenda," claimed Faye Burton Environmental Manager. "If it is viable, and will make a difference Honda will do it. We are the only manufacturer with two IMA petrol electric vehicles on the road and we are committed to a cleaner future."

Today The Union Of Concerned Scientists named America Honda Motor Co. the "Greenest Automaker".

"Honda is in a class of its own when it comes to producing clean cars and trucks," said David Friedman, Research Director of UCS's Clean Vehicles Program and lead author of the report.

To read our in depth road test of the Honda Civic IMA [ click here ]