"Green Options"-Car Sharing
Friday, August 15, 2008SUSIE GHARIB: These days, it's not only consumers looking for ways to go green and still cut costs; companies are doing it, too and it can be a challenge. In our on-going series, "Green Options," Dana Greenspon shows us how some firms are looking at car-sharing as a way to help the environment and the bottom line.
DANA GREENSPON, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT CORRESPONDENT: Architects at HOK believe in practicing what they preach. They build green, so they want employees to live green, too. So two years ago, senior associate Pamela Sams decided to add a little zip to the company's green initiative. She encouraged her office to open an account with car-sharing company Zipcar. The result, a speedy success.
PAMELA SAMS, SENIOR ASSOCIATE, HOK: If we have a meeting outside of the office, we can just jump in a Zipcar, which is just around the corner and go and attend our meeting, come back and go home on the metro or bikes or whatever it is that we normally do.
GREENSPON: Here's how Zipcar works. Individuals or company employees sign up and receive a zip card that gets them into any car in the fleet, worldwide. When a member like Sams needs the car for a business trip, she reserves a vehicle online or over the phone, heads to the lot, swipes her card over the windshield and hops inside. The keys are waiting for her. With about 5,500 cars worldwide -- complete with funky names and hip models-- Zipcar capitalizes on making members feel like hipsters, or rather, Zipsters.
SAMS: And they get all excited, you know, because they can drive the BMW, they can drive the Cooper mini and try out the hybrid cars and all that stuff.
GREENSPON: That's right -- hybrid cars. Two of the three cars in the lot near HOK's DC office are hybrids. Zipcar General Manager Ellice Perez says it's all part of making travel easier and greener by replacing owner- occupied gas guzzlers.
ELLICE PEREZ, DC GENERAL MANAGER, ZIPCAR, INC.: We're able to remove many of those cars off the road, so that's less congestion, less Co2 emitted into the air, so there's a huge combined impact.
GREENSPON: Sure, taking a hybrid like this for a spin is fun and for a company like HOK, it's also convenient and cost-effective. But is car- sharing the way of the future or just a niche trend? Robert Puentes thinks it's the way of the future, at least in part. He studies metropolitan growth and development and says the future of transportation is all about choices. Until now, public transportation and car-sharing have had trouble thriving in outlying suburban areas. But he thinks that won't last long as people change the way they live.
ROBERT PUENTES, METROPOLITAN POLICY ANALYST, BROOKINGS: These low density, very, very spread out choices may have suited a different decade in the country. But with gas prices at $4 a gallon, with the realities of living in a carbon and an energy constrained world, people are rethinking these development patterns and rethinking how they get around.
GREENSPON: High gas prices are one of the major drivers in Zipcar's growth. For companies, it costs $75 to join, $25 per employee and $7 to $9 an hour to drive the car. All of that includes gas, along with insurance, parking and maintenance. Zipcar's Perez isn't shy about the future she sees for the company.
PEREZ: We envision a world where there are more car sharers than car owners. It's much more efficient, it's much better for the environment, it saves a lot of money for our members.
GREENSPON: Saving green by going green -- that's a zippy phrase many companies are willing to take for a ride. Dana Greenspon, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT, Washington.
