Car Rental Firms Put Enterprise into Carbon Offset Program

Customers can put brakes on some emissions with $1.25-per-rental purchase

By Dennis Schaal

Enterprise, National and Alamo apparently haven’t exhausted all of their options in developing a sustainability platform: The three car rental companies plan to introduce a carbon offset program.

When customers make reservations through call-in centers or online, they’ll have the option of contributing $1.25 per rental to fund carbon offset programs through TerraPass.

And the three car rental companies, owned by the Taylor family of St. Louis, will match the carbon offset purchases up to $1 million.

The program begins Jan. 1 at participating locations in the U.S. and Canada, and Enterprise will extend the program to Europe in mid-2008, the company said.

The carbon offset program, of course, wouldn’t neutralize the car companies’ emissions. The companies estimate that in the unlikely event that all of their 20-25 million customers opted in, and if the $1 million matching contribution is added, as well, then the program would offset about one-half of the three fleets’ emissions.

Enterprise, Alamo and National have a mulitpronged approach on sustainability. For example, some 264,000 of their vehicles have the EPA’s SmartWay certification as emitting relatively low levels of greenhouse gases and regulated pollutants. Additionally, 54,000 of their vehicles are equipped to use an 85/15 ethanol/gasoline blend.