4.1. Resource Management

Explaining the impact

Through the core business of providing mobility solutions to various customers, mainly in the form of short-, medium- and long-term car rental, we understand the environmental impact of GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions, mainly CO₂. We constantly strive to optimise fuel consumption and mileage in our own fleet and seek optimisation solutions in our operational fleet, which is in direct use by our customers. We encourage alternative mobility solutions and focus our efforts on better managing our existing fleet and optimising its utilisation. We keep the average age of the fleet below 48 months and ensure that the cars in the fleet are well maintained and when they leave the Autonom fleet as rolled cars they are still in optimal working condition, thus contributing to the renewal of the national fleet.

At the same time, through the 48 locations located nationwide in Romania and 2 in Hungary, we understand the direct impact that Autonom can generate in terms of energy consumption (electricity, gas and fuel). We constantly strive to monitor and reduce energy consumption and are in constant discussions with the owners of the premises we rent to explore solutions for energy efficiency and increasing the use of renewable energy sources to power these locations.

In 2021, we certified and implemented an integrated quality – environment – occupational health and safety management system. Thus, in accordance with the ISO 14001 environmental standard, as part of this integrated system, in conjunction with the development of the Sustainability Strategy in the same year, we have identified the environmental aspects relevant to the activity and significant impacts and have created appropriate control and monitoring mechanisms to reduce our negative impacts as much as possible.

Managing the impact

Energy and fuel management

Energy consumption

Energy consumption arises in the operational activities of Autonom’s agencies and offices in the form of energy required for lighting, heating or cooling of functional workspaces, ensuring the operation of office equipment or other equipment specific to our activity.

To carry out their field work and to make visits to various locations and partners, some of our employees use certain vehicles from our own fleet, resulting in fuel consumption (diesel, petrol or electricity) that is a direct environmental impact on the part of our company. On the other hand, we provide our customers with vehicles under operational leasing or rent-a-car systems, the consumption allocated to them representing an indirect impact for Autonom through the value chain.

Based on the integrated management system and the Sustainability Strategy, we quantify these energy consumptions, constantly monitor and assess their extent, and have a traceability of these data. As an overview, we quantify the direct and indirect environmental impact of the company through the carbon footprint, calculated annually considering the GHG Protocol standard, and more specific to our field, the impact generated by the car fleet using as an indicator CO₂ emission, generated as a value per km driven, according to the latest standard, WLTP (Worldwide Harmonized Light-Duty Test Procedure). In this way, we can have an accurate and complete traceability of our direct and indirect environmental impact and can take clear steps to mitigate this impact.

In 2022 we returned to the physical office presence mode in most of our locations, which is necessary especially in terms of direct interaction with clients in our agencies, and where possible we maintained a hybrid (office/home) mode. As a result, energy and natural gas consumption in our offices did not reach the volume of 2020 but still showed an increase compared to 2021. However, compared to the baseline year (2020) we have a consumption reduction of 9.26% for electricity and 26.81% for natural gas consumption..

The headquarters in Piatra Neamt, equipped in 2021 with photovoltaic panels with an installed power of 40 kWh and became a prosumer the following month, produced by the end of 2021 a renewable energy of 11 MWh, equivalent to 39.6 GJ. In 2022, we added photovoltaic panels and produced 50 MWh and in 2023 we want to reach, together with the new headquarters under construction, over 200 kWh installed power. We are considering expanding this mode of renewable energy supply to more locations where possible.

As our efforts have continued towards reducing consumption, energy efficiency and increasing production capacity at the Piatra Neamt site, at company level, the increase in energy prices has not significantly affected us.

We have also asked energy suppliers to provide us with Certificates of Origin for the energy consumed by Autonom Services and, as of 2022, we have received 28 Guarantees of Origin, equivalent to 18.21 MWh, representing 4.7% of the energy consumed. At Autonom Group level, other Guarantees of Origin equivalent to 45.32 MWh were also transferred by energy suppliers.

Sustainable fleet

We are aware of the high volume of fossil fuel we consume through operational activity, at the value chain level. As a result, in addition to ongoing efforts to optimise this consumption and directly reduce the impact by transitioning to a low-emission fleet, we have also continued our partnership with Climate Partner to partially offset the emissions resulting from the consumption of fuel supplied by OMV/Petrom.

An increase in the fuel consumption of the own fleet is observed, because of the gradual return to the normal pace of activity prior to the pandemic and the expansion of the direct sales force, including the integration of colleagues from the Premium Leasing team, with the majority of vehicles used by employees being hybrid cars with an alternative petrol source. However, the direct impact on the operational fleet is insignificant, remaining below 1% of total fuel consumed across the fleet.

The same increase in fuel turnover can be observed at the level of the fleet in direct use by operational leasing and rent-a-car customers, with the same justification of gradual recovery of the business and operational activity, to which is added the integration of the fleet of over 2,600 cars from the Premium Leasing acquisition. Conversely, the integration of a significant number of electric cars into the fleet by 2022 was directly felt in fuel consumption in the form of electricity, with the increase being exponential.

The increase in tourism and passenger traffic at Romanian airports, as well as the accelerated development of the Replacement Car in Case of Accident (under Romanian law, drivers injured in road accidents have the right to request a replacement car during the repair period, the cost of which is covered by the at-fault driver’s MTPL insurance) have contributed significantly to the success of the rental division.

As a result of delivery delays of new cars and uncertainties in the market, companies appreciated more the flexibility of short- and medium-term rental solutions to cover immediate mobility needs. Thus, short- and medium-term rental services were the ideal solution for companies that had immediate transport needs or needed temporary mobility until the delivery of their operationally leased cars.

Of course, the average occupancy rate of the fleet, maintained at last year’s high level, is also the result of decisions to optimise fleet sizing, but also of making the organisation more efficient by creating regional fleets.

Effectiveness of actions taken

Some specific characteristics of the 2022 operating lease customer fleet:

• Average age of vehicles is 48 months
• The size of the long-term rental fleet at the end of the year was 10,949 vehicles
• Average fleet/customer is approx. 5 cars

Some specific characteristics of the 2022 rental car customer fleet:

• Average age of vehicles is 18 months
• The average size of the short-term rental fleet was 2,731 vehicles
• The total number of rental days available for vehicles was 732,084 days
• Fleet utilisation rate was 88%

The growth rate compared to 2021 in the number of kilometres travelled by Autonom customers was 34%, while the growth rate of the fleet was much lower (51% for the operational leasing fleet and 12% for the rent-a-car fleet)