John and Helen Taylor drove around Australia in their Peugeot 308 HDi, breaking two Guinness World Records – “Round Australia Diesel Economy World Record”, and the overall “Round Australia World Fuel Economy Record” (subject to final Guinness World Record confirmation) – and completed their trip yesterday when they returned to Melbourne.
Greenfleet’s CEO Sara Gipton said John and Helen Taylor’s record was a fantastic achievement – at just 90g CO2-e/km travelled (national average is 285g CO2-e/km) and showed what a difference driving the right vehicle – very well, could make.
“This achievement is approximately one-third of the Australian average passenger vehicle emissions per km travelled,” Ms Gipton said.
“The car was driven carrying two people and their luggage and even surpassed the results achieved by any commercially available vehicle in the Greenfleet Class of the 2007 World Solar Challenge.
“If everyone in Australia could drive just one-third more ‘carbon efficiently’ than our current average (generating only 190g CO2-e/km travelled), assuming total km’s remain constant, we could collectively reduce Australia’s total greenhouse emissions from passenger vehicles by approximately 15 CO2-e megatonnes,” she said.
Since 1990, greenhouse emissions from Australia’s passenger vehicles have grown by 25 per cent.
“Changing the way we drive and what we drive can make a significant contribution to achieving aggressive greenhouse gas reduction targets as proposed recently in the Interim Garnaut report,” Ms Gipton said.
“To achieve the proposed greenhouse targets (min 60 per cent reduction) – we all need to drive as well as the Taylors.”
“Greenfleet encourages organisations and individuals to reduce the greenhouse gases they make and then offset or counterbalance their remaining emissions via Greenfleet’s forest restoration program,” Ms Gipton said.
“Greenfleet’s forests do much more for the environment than just take carbon from the atmosphere and lock it away.
“Our biodiverse approach means we plant a wide variety of native trees as permanent forests that help to reduce salinity and soil erosion and provide essential habitat for native wildlife,” Ms Gipton said.