Going Green: Agency urges rival firms to follow its lead

After becoming the first large agency to move to electric BMW i3s in 2019, Chestertons is urging others in the industry to follow its lead.

With over 70 electric BMW i3s now on the road across London, Chestertons has calculated that it will have now reduced its tailpipe CO2 emissions by 2,925kgs or 183 tonnes per year.

Guy Gittins, Chestertons’ chief executive, comments: “Business leaders can’t simply sit back and watch the climate crisis destroy our Earth. We have a shared responsibility to do everything we can to protect our environment. We took the decision in 2019 to work towards becoming the greenest estate agent in the UK, and started on a journey to become carbon neutral.

“We soon identified that the only way of realistically doing this was to completely overhaul our car fleet. Our first BMW i3s hit the road the same year, and then last year, along with many other green initiatives across the business (such as using all renewable energy for each office) we achieved our goal and became the first UK agent to be certified as carbon neutral. 

“With over 70 electric cars now on the roads, we are not only doing our part to improve London’s air quality, but we have also seen some cost savings as a result of our decision, which have been put towards supporting government-backed Carbon offset programs so we could achieve our carbon neutral status. It is a project that our staff have all been incredibly excited about and proud to be a part of and it has certainly helped raise awareness of environmental issues across the business and within the communities we serve.”

Michelle Keller, Chestertons fleet manager, adds: “It’s been an exciting couple of years launching the new fleet onto the road but the feedback from staff and clients has been overwhelmingly positive. At first, we had concerns about the availability of charging points, especially for our busiest offices like Islington and South Kensington, but this has never caused any issues and in fact turned out to be a big advantage during the petrol shortage a few weeks ago.”