Always moving towards a better future
This is Autonom Services second voluntary Sustainability Report, the result of an effort to present information in a structured and transparent way about what we are doing to create a better future for our colleagues, customers, suppliers and how we are actively involved in the communities we are part of.
“Autonom is for those who dare, for those who take on the challenges of daily growth and development, for entrepreneurs with vision, for those who believe that it is possible to build in any conditions with other people who care. For them, we want to be an agent of positive change. To give them courage, confidence and solutions to help them grow, while being mindful of the impact they have in their turn. Through the voluntary involvement of colleagues and with the support of the Autonom Foundation, we want to play a constant role in the growth of the next generations through education“,Marius Ștefan, founder of Autonom
We understand that we are an important player in the mobility, operational leasing and rent-a-car services market, as our fleet exceeded 14,000 cars last year. This is why we also take responsibility for contributing to the development of a sustainable ecosystem and having clear, tangible and measurable actions to ensure we achieve our goals. For us, sustainability is not something to do on top of something else, but a fundamental way of doing business, with a long-term horizon.
The context in which we find ourselves has been marked by a series of challenging events: a pandemic whose effects are still being felt, a geopolitical conflict that has caught everyone by surprise, accentuated the dysfunctional supply chains and put pressure on the economy through rising energy and raw material prices, and last but not least, the worsening effects of climate change and a heightened sense of urgency in decisions and actions. Situations are constantly evolving and that is why we believe it is imperative at business level to constantly adapt our strategy and resources allocated to change-producing projects for an effective response and sustainable results.
2021 was the year we defined and structured our Sustainability Strategy, and 2022 was the year of implementation, through the direct actions we chose to take and the projects we chose to support. We are proud and grateful for what we have been able to achieve, for the commitment of our colleagues, but also for the trust that customers, partners, and investors have given us.
In line with our Business Strategy, throughout 2022 we have prioritised sustainability, predominantly through:
- Stepping up efforts to transition to a low emission fleet;
- Contributing to the development of the electric charging infrastructure by installing charging stations in agencies where possible;
- TCFD (Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures) analysis and integration of climate risks into the risk categories analysed;
- Implementation of separate collection at national level and
- Continuing community involvement activities.
In this context, we voluntarily published our first Sustainability Report for 2021, in which we transparently communicated our progress against the targets set out in our Sustainability Strategy. Nationally, we joined the Angajament pentru mediu (Commitment for Environment) project and joined the largest international initiative, the UN Global Compact, committing to uphold its ten principles on human rights, environment, good governance and anti-corruption.
Our performance in terms of sustainability governance, economic, environmental and social impacts, and the transparency with which we have presented information in our 2021 Sustainability Report has helped us achieve a good ESG Rating and Gold Level recognition in the Romania CST Index 2022.
To accelerate the transition to a green fleet, we have been joined by a new funding partner, the European Investment Bank. This is the first financing provided by the EIB for a mobility company in Romania and will support us in our efforts to transform mobility solutions for companies and expand our fleet of electric and hybrid cars. The first steps taken in 2022 materialised by ordering 200 Tesla cars, and the first batch of electric cars consisting of Tesla Model 3 and Tesla Model Y, already arrived in our fleet in the first quarter of 2023.
Our main long-term objective is to reduce average emissions of the operational fleet by more than 50% by 2030, with an intermediate target of a 25% reduction by 2025.
In 2022 we made progress towards this target, lowering average emissions from 149 g/km to 144 g/km, and the integration of Premium Leasing, both team and fleet, was well underway by the end of the year. At this point in time, there is a gap to the roadmap set out in the original strategy, but we are confident that we will be able to deliver on our commitments in the medium to long term.
