Green Motion was born in 2007 with the clear objective of offering a truly ecological car rental option for travellers across the world. The launch of Green Motion coincided with a global consensus about the contribution of transportation on the emission of Greenhouse Gases (GHG) and its impact on climate change.
We have based our all-encompassing environmental strategy on reducing, controlling and compensating the CO2 emitted by our fleet, which implies actions taken before the customer choses our services, and long after the return of our vehicles.
The temperature of the Earth results from a balance between energy coming into the Earth from the Sun (solar radiation) and the energy leaving the Earth into outer space.
About half the solar radiation striking the Earth and its atmosphere is absorbed at the surface. The other half is absorbed by the atmosphere or reflected back into space by clouds, small particles in the atmosphere, snow, ice and deserts at the Earth’s surface.
Part of the energy absorbed at the Earth’s surface is radiated back (or re-admitted) to the atmosphere and space in the form of heat (or thermal) energy. The temperature we feel is a measure of this heat energy.
In the atmosphere, not all thermal radiation emitted by the Earth reaches outer space. Part of it is absorbed and reflected back to the Earth’s surface by greenhouse gas (GHG) molecules and clouds (the greenhouse effect) leading to a global average of around 14°C, well above the -19°C which would be felt without the natural greenhouse effect. The concentrations of some GHGs, such as carbon dioxide (CO2), are significantly influenced by humans; others, such as water vapor, are not.
We would like to thank our customers for choosing to rent their lower CO2 emission car rental from Green Motion and choosing to make further donation via our Green Heart Programme, reducing their impact on our planet even further.
The Green Heart Donation is an initiative that allows our customers to reduce their CO2 footprint by offsetting the emissions produced while driving one of our vehicles. During the booking process, customers are offered the opportunity to make a Green Heart Donation of either $1, £1 or €1. All donations go to the “Environmental Services Payment (PSA) Program” through FONAFIFO, a Costa Rican governmental institution.
Plantations of fast-growing trees in the Tropics are the most efficient means of CO2 sequestration, since due to the warm, humid climate and abundant rain, the trees in these areas grow year-round. About 95% of all CO2 sequestration takes place in the tropical zones of the planet.
During their growing process, these trees will capture CO2 from the atmosphere and through photosynthesis will produce their food and release oxygen. This process of CO2 sequestration compensates the negative impact on the environment produced by our customers, by “cleaning” the atmosphere of greenhouse gases, and therefore reducing the effects of climate change.
FONAFIFO also protects the Costa Rican rainforest and the biodiversity found within it. The four main focuses of the project are:
Green Motion also sponsors the Osa Live Forest Project, which covers 60,000 hectares of the Osa Peninsular. One of their main methods of protecting biodiversity is to use camera trapping. As of 2018, more than 11,000 records have been taken showing 79 different species, 16.5% of these species are listed as under some sort of threat.
This breaks down to the following: