Gaydon, Friday 18 May 2007 – Land Rover today welcomed Ian Pearson Minister for State (Climate Change and the Environment) to its Gaydon Design and Engineering Centre, to demonstrate the environmental technologies and CO2 strategy being developed to tackle climate change.
The visit enabled the Minister to learn about the largest ever environmental commitment to be undertaken by a vehicle manufacturer in the UK. He was given an insight into the advanced diesel and hybrid technologies being developed to deliver maximum CO2 emissions reductions, which will be introduced on future models.
While this new technology is being developed, Land Rover has introduced a CO2 Offset Programme, which offsets all emissions at Land Rover production facilities in the UK and enables customers to offset carbon emissions for the first 45,000 miles of vehicle use. The Minister was given an insight into how Climate Care, the independent organisation running the Programme, is investing in worldwide sustainability projects on behalf of Land Rover to offset these emissions.
Ian Pearson said, “It is good to see the progress being made by Land Rover to develop the technologies that will cut emissions on the next generation of cars. Land Rover is an important part of the economy, particularly here in the Midlands, and I’ve been impressed by the level of commitment and financial investment to improve the environmental performance of its cars.”
Phil Popham, Land Rover’s Managing Director, said: “This has been a great opportunity for us to show the Minister exactly what Land Rover is doing to address the challenges of climate change. We’ve been able to demonstrate our integrated approach to reducing CO2 emissions now and in the future. Our programme is part of Ford Motor Company’s £1 billion investment initiative into environmental technologies, highlighting our commitment to improving the footprint of our cars.”
The visit culminated with the Minister being able to see the technology in action, when he took a prototype out on the test track. He also had a first hand experience of the breadth of capability of a Discovery TDV6 when he tackled a rock crawl in the vehicle.
