A few years ago, carbon neutrality was new and overwhelming. Then it became the ‘cool’ thing to do, and now the novelty is wearing off again for some. Wellington Combined Taxis doesn’t give a hoot whether it’s cool or not, they’ve been subscribers for years. Nadine Isler caught up with Ani De Graaf, to find out more about their progress.

Ani, marketing manager for Combined says it was a very long road to get their 442 taxis officially certified as carbon neutral, which perhaps explains why they are the first carboNZeroCert TM certified taxi service in New Zealand. No petrol-only vehicles have been allowed to enter their fleet since June 2008, and any kilometres travelled have already been offset by purchasing carbon credits through the Tararua Windfarm project. “It was really important for us” says Ani “to choose a certification programme that we could trust, so we could be 100% that we are telling our passengers the absolute truth and whatever we claimed was correct and transparent.” They chose to offset the personal mileage travelled in the taxis, as well as while drivers were working.

“This has been my baby for the last two years,” she says. “I had so much to learn, I actually started having nightmares about carbon emissions for a while!” She thinks that regardless of customer interest, it was something they would have looked into anyway. “But there was a need apparent which made me look into and investigate it sooner rather than later. It’s unfortunate that we couldn’t do it even sooner, but because of the size of the fleet and because it’s shareholder owned and operated, it took a bit longer and we wanted to make sure we did it right.”

Like any major change project it was not all plain sailing for Ani, first she had to sell the concept to her boss, then to the board of directors and of course to the drivers. “She got plenty of grief from some of the drivers initially,” a driver tells me later, “but she stuck at it, learned fast and worked at getting support from the likes of Ministry for the Environment, and Meridian Energy.”

The process has not been cheap; Ani smiles and will only say it cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, but they are determined not to pass the cost on to passengers. She says it has been worthwhile to give customers what they want, and what everyone knows is the right thing to do.

“We are very proud of this” says Ani, it’s been a lot of work and a great achievement which makes sense for our environment, community and our business, but ultimately its only part of giving our customers what they want, along with a commitment to safety, full traceability of all trips, a range of cost effective payment options and detailed reporting systems”.

They aren’t all too worried about the competition following in their green footsteps either, after all, “it’s satisfying to be an industry leader in something so important.”

Ani knew she was going to face scepticism when she embarked on this project, but overall has been amazed at the support. “It’s been embraced by so many people. I think in general people have realised that it’s a difficult thing for a company our size to do, and we’ve really had to make a stand.” Many of Combined’s drivers have gotten behind the initiative enthusiastically, whether through the promise of saving money through being fuel efficient, or in learning more to talk to their passengers about.

Warren Quirke is one of these drivers. He first became interested in carbon neutrality when he had to buy a new car and wasn’t impressed with the options available. He is an ex-mechanic and began the process to bring in more fuel efficient vehicles into the fleet.

He also has an idea which is possibly a world-first, and certainly a nationwide-first. He’s suggested that Wellington (and eventually other cities) should set some designated ‘green’ taxi ranks, where only certified low-emissions vehicles from carbon neutral companies, are allowed to pick up from. He argues that we should be careful not to affect the other operators within the city, but at the same time we should give people the clear choice at the stands. The idea is currently being investigated further, he is putting a proposal to the council, and has had some great feedback so far.

“We hear all this talk about 100% Pure,” says Warren, “so why not live up to it?” He proposes that the first one should be on Lambton Quay, between tourist destinations Kirkaldies & Staines and the Cablecar. “We could start with a portion of one or two stands as a trial, and go from there. Policing it would be the trickiest thing, but losing a passenger licence is a big threat to drivers, and the council owns the land the stands are on so it would be up to them to be tough on who parks there.”

So where to from now? Ani says the ‘green’ initiative certainly doesn’t end here. “It’s still a big focus for our company, it’s not just ‘oh we’ve got this certification now and that’s it’. We have been careful to avoid greenwashing, and will continue to do so.”

With three million passengers taking Wellington Combined Taxis a distance of 45,000kms every year it sounds like it’s a good thing the company are aware of their own footprint.

We would love to hear what you think about Warren’s idea. Would you like to see designated carbon neutral taxi ranks in Wellington? Email the editor at nadinei@in-business.co.nz with your thoughts.