The Drive Green Approach to Sustainability

Richard Norris, managing director of leading independent retailer Drive Green spoke to us about how they have put sustainability at the core of the business and what benefits they have seen as a result of their sustainability initiatives which won them the Sustainability Initiative of the Year award at the Auto Trader Retailer Awards 2023.

How did it all begin?

As the MD and founder of Drive Green I have been able to create this business found the ground up from the very start to be as green a business as possible, to align with my personal values around sustainability.

Prior to setting up Drive Green I had been working in the domestic green technology since 2011, helping homeowners to incorporate these technologies into their lives to make their home and lifestyles greener.  Drive Green was set-up as an extension of this, as I wanted my business(s) to be able to help customer embrace every green technology on the market, and particularly at the time that was how EV’s were viewed.

The spark that made me move to EV’s was the number of customers I was consulting and designing systems for who mentioned they were thinking about buying an electric car, and the number of systems I was designing with this in mind. As a result I starting selling EV’s to meet the demand arising I could see arising, and as I could forsee how important they were going to be in helping making the world a greener place.

What makes Driver Green a leader in sustainability?

 The whole business is designed to be a green as possible from top to bottom, in the big ways (power, heating, construction) as well as the small ways (recycled paper floor mats, and display pouches, and coffee capsules).  The result is with a plan of a some additional trees to cover the carbon cost of our inbound deliveries (which often come on haulier trucksful by diesel), we are already a truly carbon neutral business.

In terms of our green credentials, we work with a very green product – Electric Cars. But as well as this I have tried to make Drive Green as green a business in every respect, in line with the on which the business was founded. If there is a greener way to do it that is the way to do – always.

·        Electric Cars - Pursuing our green goals has been made easier of course because we work in a green sector anyway. Selling only electric cars, every sale we make is another green achievement as it is another polluting vehicle off the road.

·        Use Green Energy –We use Ecotricity for our electricity supply, as I feel they are perhaps the greenest of energy suppliers with a great re-investment strategy, and we are next to 2 of their Turbines. 

·        Solar PV – we do however have a 4kW Solar PV array that we use to power the office and charge a car.  This offers a great example to our customers as to what they can do at home.

·        Green Heating / Biomass – we use a wood pellet boiler to provide our carbon neutral heating. 

·        Recycled Eco-build – our whole office building is a temporary structure made entirely of reclaimed and recycled materials – every scrap of it, down to the nails and light fittings. 

·        Harmonize with Nature / Green Roof

·        Green Tech Showroom – in the office we still have Greentech examples on display for visitors to look at. Spreading the word, creating awareness and educating people I think is one of the most important things we can all do to promote sustainable living.

·        Upcycled Furniture

·        Wild-Flower Bed - We have a wild-flower bed along the entire frontage of the site, good for wildlife and good for message giving over social media. 

·        Site Fencing – the site is decorated in local reclaimed timbers to suit the natural feel to the site. 

·        Repair and Upgrade Computers – rather than buy new computer equipment we repair and upgrade.

·        Recycling – we recycle everything, and have sorting bins for every category to make it easy.

·        Composting – anything compostable we compost.

·        Recycled paper floor mats – Being a car dealership we use a lot of protective paper floormats, and as we couldn’t find anyone who supplied car floor mats made of recycled paper, we have had our own ones made.

·        Reusable Cables ties

·        Wood Key Rings

·        Bamboo Pens

·        Green Thoughts for the day – we have a green thought for the day

·        No Disposable cups – we use only reusable cups and glasses, and no lazy disposable items.

·        Drive Green Membership Scheme – all purchasers of our cars get a membership card (made of recycled plastic) what they can use to claim discount at a number of green businesses.

·        Charity donations – we support Green Peace and Friends of the Earth, and the World Wildlife fun

·        Promoting Sustainable living - In terms of Promoting Sustainable living in general we also do lots over our social media channels as well as directly to our customer face to face here at the showroom

·        Making Staff Greener

·        Local School Green Educational Sponsorship

·        Reusable water drinking bottles – all the staff have been given a ‘WWF reusable thermos bottle to bring drinks into work, so as to not bring in any single use drink items.

·        No Single use plastic at work rule –

·        Staff Bring your own waste free lunch scheme

·        Staff EV Ownership Incentive Scheme

What advice do you wish you’d been given at the beginning of your work in sustainability?

We really have been leading the way in this area I think, so it is normally us giving the advice to others, but I guess the thing I wish I had realised earlier is how apathetic the majority of people are when it comes to being greener or living more sustainable if it requires them to alter their behaviours, expend more effort, spend more money, and compromise in their life.  How to alter the behaviour is more of a challenge than I realised and far harder than helping those who already wish to live more sustainably.

 Are there any lessons you’ve had to learn the hard way?

Some measures seem to be just a step to far, such as our compost loo, which whilst it was accepted by customers, )who I think almost enjoyed how different an experience that was, emphasising they are not in your usual car dealership,) maintaining a public compost loo is challenging, plus the staff who had to use it every day really didn’t like it.  As a result of staff pressures I have now had to replace it with a normal flushing loo.  It is a shame from my point of view as I want us to do ‘everything’ we can to be as sustainable as possible, but keeping the staff happy is important (and I did fully understand why they didn’t like it.)  I think the real lesson is that not everyone shares my complete enthusiasm for everything green.

How have consumers responded to your sustainability initiatives?

Very positively – being green is in the fabric of what we do and why we do it, and I think it inspires many visitors, reassures customers that we are a caring business they can trust, and adds value to their experience with us and greater satisfaction to have bought an EV from drive green and further helping the sustainability movement.

What’s next?

Whilst we are already carbon neutral and as green as possible, I would still like to see the carbon cost of our deliveries going down, which next year I plan to do by having more driven deliveries instead of trucked deliveries.  We already do this, however I think it is possible we can do more.  Currently, deliveries are offset by tree planning, but it would be nice to make deliveries actually greener.

I am also working on a big project that will hopefully bring the purchasing of an EV and other domestic green technologies closer together to make further green measures as easy and affordable as possible.  This I am very excited about as it will be another first, and hopefully an approach that can spark a whole new green industry wide approach to helping customers make their lifestyles greener.  Sorry to be so vague, but at this stage it needs to be, but more will be revealed in the new year.

To find out more about Drive Green’s approach to sustainability, check out their video right here.