FleetCheck has revealed that 5.3 per cent of company cars and vans only meet the Euro 4 emissions standard or older, with a fifth of vehicles also falling behind the latest Euro 6 legislation by only achieving Euro 5.

The sample of 85,792 company cars and vans being operated by customers of FleetCheck highlights the the disparity that currently exists across fleets when it comes to emissions. Peter Golding, managing director at FleetCheck, said that the figures indicate how far the industry ‘will have to travel’ to achieve the kind of low or zero-emissions performance that the industry is moving towards.

Golding also added that most of the oldest and most polluting vehicles in the analysis appeared to be diesel vans, many of which were operated on a spare or pool vehicle basis. Over the next few years, he said, there was a strong possibility that the introduction of Clean Air Zones would start to see more of these vehicles disappear from fleets.

Golding commented: “It is not uncommon for smaller businesses to continue to operate vans until they become uneconomic to repair or too unreliable for everyday use. Even some of the latter will be kept in the yard as a spare van and used occasionally. However, there is a strong argument that these vehicles shouldn’t be on the road at all, given their poor emissions.

“While CAZs have arguably got off to a slow start, it seems likely that at least some will ultimately move to the ULEZ model and operate a Euro 6 minimum for diesel vehicles. This is one of the factors that will start to see some of these older vans start to disappear. However, well ahead of that point, more could be done to persuade fleets to stop operating these vehicles. That might mean disincentives using measures such as Vehicle Excise Duty or it could mean incentives such as wider use of scrappage schemes.

“On a simpler level, the economics behind the ongoing operation of these older vans are often highly questionable, and getting this message across to businesses is also something that we perhaps should be communicating more widely as an industry.”