Land Rover Menap has announced that it will be offsetting over 300,000 tonnes of tailpipe CO2 emissions from sales of its cars in the Middle East, North Africa & Pakistan region via its CO2 offset programme.

The amount offset will be invested in environmental projects in the developing world to help transform communities, said a statement.

The total offset covers the first 72,000km of 14,883 new Land Rover models sold from October 2008 to date in the Menap region, it said.

The CO2 offset programme, run by JP Morgan Climate Care, an internationally respected CO2 offset provider, is part of a transitional mechanism the company is using whilst it works to improve carbon management across the business.

“The company’s global sustainability strategy is focused on minimising the environmental impact of its products and operations, and includes tough global targets to reduce waste, energy and overall carbon emissions. It has already committed to investing £800 million globally in developing environmental technologies for its cars and in improving manufacturing processes,” the statement said.    

Globally the company's offset programme will deliver over 1.7 million tonnes of emission reductions in 2010, by combining investments from Land Rover and customers spanning the UK, Europe, Mena and Asia.  These emission reduction projects will aid in the development of a lower carbon world, it said.

Robin Colgan, managing director, Land Rover Menap, said: “At Land Rover we are very proud to have the largest CO2 offset programme in the automotive industry and one of the largest consumer offset programmes in the world.  I am particularly proud of these figures for the Menap region which shows that there is an increasing awareness in this region about the importance of the environment and the role that vehicles and personal transport play.

“On a global level, in addition to developing the CO2 offset programme, we are also working hard to improve the emissions of our vehicle and we are targeting an overall tailpipe CO2 reduction across the vehicle fleet of 25 per cent by 2014, against our 2007 emissions levels,” he said. – TradeArabia News Service