North America's Largest Car Rental Company Converts to Biodiesel for Its Airport Shuttle Buses

GRAPEVINE, Texas - Grapevine, Tex. – Airport travel will be a breath of fresh air for Alamo Rent A Car, Enterprise Rent-A-Car and National Car Rental customers as biodiesel gets them to and from their destination. Enterprise Holdings launched efforts for their entire fleet of more than 600 airport shuttle buses across 50 North American markets to begin using at least 5 percent biodiesel (B5). The company formally unveiled their latest clean energy measure at the 2010 National Biodiesel Conference & Expo in Grapevine, Texas.

"Enterprise Holdings' move to cleaner burning, renewable biodiesel is a premier example of corporate responsibility," said NBB CEO Joe Jobe. "We are pleased that as Enterprise Holdings proactively seeks cleaner energy alternatives, biodiesel is among the solutions."

Enterprise Holdings will immediately convert buses in nine markets to 20 percent biodiesel (B20) as a first step toward the company's goal of converting its entire bus fleet to B20 over the next five years. Those markets include: Boston; Chicago; Denver; Detroit; Los Angeles; Miami; Raleigh/Durham; San Antonio and San Diego. The company expects to complete the conversion to B5 by spring of this year, with at least 50 percent converted to B20 by the end of next year.

"This investment to biodiesel follows our commitment to our customers and our business to use our fleet to help grow the clean fuel market. By embracing alternative fuels and engine technologies they have greater opportunity to become commercially viable," said Lee Broughton, director of corporate identity and sustainability for Enterprise Holdings. "Biodiesel's benefits to the environment support our commitment to environmental stewardship, as well as our sustainable approach to managing our business for long-term success."

Biodiesel has been in the spotlight recently as President Obama and his administration last week detailed efforts to build a new clean energy economy. Among measures to boost biofuels production, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency finalized a rule to implement the long-term renewable fuels standard of 36 billion gallons by 2022. The EPA guidelines identify biodiesel as an advanced biofuel and require 1.15 billion gallons of biodiesel be used domestically by the end of 2010. Biodiesel has the best energy balance and the best greenhouse gas reduction of any fuel that is currently in the commercial marketplace and is the only advanced biofuel that has reached commercialization in the U.S.