Thrifty Car rental Ireland Continues 'Green' Push

Dublin, Ireland — 11/24/07 — Thrifty Car Rental Ireland continues to push the 'green' side of the car rental business as a core responsibility. In line with the recent attention being paid to corporate environmental issues, Thrifty have started implementing processes aimed at the reduced use of resources. The car rental industry worldwide pays a high cost in terms of environmental resource usage, particularly when it comes to paper, energy, packaging and cleaning chemicals.

The steps that are currently being undertaking include several lasting solutions to deal with excess usage of finite resources. While every business will have environmental issues, Thrifty have taken several active steps to reduce the amount of paper used on a daily basis within the company.

"Thrifty understand their responsibility to the environment and continuously strive to reduce their impact on it. Currently we recycle paper and cardboard, glass, water (used to wash the vehicles), energy (through the use of wind energy) and office equipment. No part of the business is safe from our goal to become carbon neutral. We know this is a long and difficult road and like everything else we do in Thrifty we look forward to meeting this challenge head on."

During early 2007 Thrifty undertook a policy to ensure that the company is cutting down on paperwork that is created in an environment that is high in paper generation. Much of the fax traffic has been converted to email and we look forward to introducing an online version of fax in the near future. All internal documents are available online and only printed where necessary. As a result of this initiative, internal issues and communications are largely managed by electronic means, either through email or through the central company website. Other policies introduced during the year were focused more towards adapting necessary customer documents to print friendly double sided contracts.

Accounting is traditionally a paper driven process, however steps have been taken to transfer as much of this process to electronic formats. All receipts, contracts and invoices are scanned into a central network where they are stored for future use. Once these documents have been scanned, they are placed in a special receptor until they are securely shredded and recycled.

The use of Airtricity as a green energy provider in all locations throughout Ireland is a sign of our commitment to the environment going forward. The fact that Thrifty uses energy generated by wind turbines means not only a lower energy bill, but a green solution to office workings. In recent times a 'hibernate your computer' policy which will improve energy efficiency and therefore reduce the cost on the environment has been implemented.

Electronic waste produced on a day to day basis is dealt with the best environmental practices. Computer equipment is recycled. All printing hardware such as cartridges and printers are purchased from the one supplier, and when used, are returned to the same provider for recycling. In addition to this, Green Bins have been added so all cardboard and glass by products can be recycled at Thrifty Car Rental Ireland.