Neste: CO2 Friendly Route by hasan & partners

Fastest is not always the best, that’s the message from Neste as its latest campaign reveals how tens of thousands of tonnes of CO2 could be saved if mapping and satellite navigation systems offered a CO2-friendly route option.

While some cars have an 'Eco' setting, most drivers are unable to choose a satnav route that cuts down emissions. Neste’s creative agency, Hasan & Partners, conceived the CO2-Friendly Route project for Neste and partnered with Here Technologies and PTV Group to prove that drivers can reduce emissions.

A campaign website https://www.neste.fi/en-co2friendlyroute details the experiment. Neste plans to promote the findings internationally on social media using #co2routing, and open-source the data to satnav developers, while it continues the research to potentially create its own satnav system.

A CO2-friendly route would save 81,000 tons of CO2 every year in the Helsinki region alone – the equivalent annual carbon dioxide emissions of 20,000 inhabitants or the removal of 30,000 passenger cars from the roads for a full year.

The test was also modeled on London, Singapore, Stockholm, and San Francisco. The study suggests up to 53,488 tons of CO2 could be saved every year in Stockholm, while up to 105,646 tons could be saved annually in San Francisco. In London, if drivers used a more CO2 friendly route, this could result in saving 398,000 tons of CO2 every year, the equivalent annual carbon dioxide emissions of 117,000 inhabitants. In Singapore, a more CO2 friendly route could result in saving 446,000 tons of CO2 every year.