About
Green Cabs is a nationwide environmentally friendly taxi company in New Zealand.
Launched in November 2007, the company established a presence in the country’s three
largest cities within six months.
Green Cabs plants trees to offset CO2 emissions through our partner Trees for the Future is a non profit organization that focuses on agroforestry, with programmes in around 30 developing countries. Green Cabs decided to support and promote this initiative because of the benefits it offers over and above carbon credit programmes. These include:
- Providing villagers in developing countries with an income
- Providing access to produce that can be used for food, shelter and medicine
- Facilitating natural native bush regeneration
- Providing a habitat for native flora and fauna
- Re-establishing underground aquifers
- Reversing desertification that is taking hold in many areas, especially those close
to the equator
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Strategy
Green Cabs has an informal philosophy of doing things on the basis that ‘It’s the right thing to do’ and that doing so feels good.
As a start-up company, Green Cabs had the luxury of being able to set up processes and relationships with suppliers with sustainability and emission reduction at the forefront of its decision making. That said, even the Prius which forms its fleet isn’t a zero emission vehicle.
As a company Green Cabs wants to make a difference and has purposely steered away from purchasing carbon credits. One of the main reasons for this is very simple, carbon credits are traditionally issued at the completion of a project. The act of purchasing such carbon credits doesn’t add anything towards helping the environment. Paying to plant trees that haven’t yet been planted on the other hand does. Besides there will be plenty of other companies and individuals lining up to buy carbon credits.
So Green Cabs established a relationship with Trees for the Future to plant for the planet and absorb some of its emissions.
Although CO2 absorption is important, Trees for the Future also focuses on agroforestry and its benefits. Teaching villagers agroforestry practices results in a programme that is sustainable and gives a number of additional benefits over and above CO2 absorption such as.
- Re-establishing underground aquifers by directing rain to them through the trees root systems
- Facilitating native bush regeneration
- Providing a habitat for flora and fauna
- Providing villagers with an income they might not have otherwise
had
- Providing plants and trees that can be used as a source of
food and medicine
So far, Green Cabs has planted 20,000 trees to offset projected emissions and has a goal of planting 100,000 by the end of 2008. We would like to have planted 1 million trees through Trees for the Future in five years time.
An important part of the way Green Cabs do things is to take responsibility for emissions up front. The company forecasts likely emissions for the next year based on the number of vehicles and how operations are expanding. The company regularly recalculates its emissions for a full year and ensures they have enough trees being planted to cover their projections. This way they will always have more
offsets than emissions.
If more emissions are needed they are organized before they are required. The company is navigating through the ISO 14064 requirements with the aim of becoming certified later this year.
- Green Cabs strategy is to grow in the three main centres and lead the way with what
it really means to be environmentally friendly and to do so from a largely moral
standpoint as opposed to commercial.
- Green Cabs aims to establish itself as the cab company of choice for both customers
and drivers, not only on the environmental side but with the service it provides
and the environment its drivers have to work in. A unfortunate culture exists in
the taxi industry of company first, customer second and drivers a distant third.
Green Cabs’ goal is to change this to customer first, driver second and company
third. The same ethics that exist in the company’s approach to environmental responsibility
must also exist in its relationship with drivers and customers.
- Green Cabs aims to force change and responsibility onto an industry that has for
a long time been devoid of ethics when it comes to both its environmental impact
and its approach to driver relations.
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