“We decided to jump at the opportunity to provide an innovative solution for our customers by calculating and tracking emissions data from the use of our equipment and eliminate a lot of inefficiency for our customers,” says Kevin Groman, RSC’s senior vice president and head of the company’s sustainability efforts.

Groman says customers had talked to RSC about trying to track emissions at individual job sites, especially in California, which has some of the strictest air quality standards in the country. Since regulations have pointed to the need for increased emission reporting in the future, several contractors had been trying to determine the best way to compile and report data.

RSC, in turn, spent the last year and half to research and develop its E2T service, which launched in October. “We created formulas, with the help of a third-party environmental expert, for the greenhouse gases emitted from our equipment,” Groman says. “Once we created the formulas, we reached out to The Global Institute of Sustainability at Arizona State University and they independently verified that the methodology, the formulas and the data collected were done with precision and integrity.”

The service tracks the greenhouse gas emissions carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O), as well as emissions of other key criteria pollutants including nitrogen oxides (NOx), carbon monoxide (CO), particulate matter (PM) and hydrocarbons (HC). The verified formulas take into account the hours of use, load factor, fuel consumption, density conversion, emission factors and engine horsepower/tier level of the machine.

In its calculations, RSC also takes into account its preventative maintenance program, which helps to keep its equipment safer and operating at peak efficiency. If RSC’s maintenance is up to date — such as oil changes completed before or at every 3,000 miles — then the machines are considered “current.” If maintenance is not up to date, RSC docks the emission factor by 0.1 percent for every percentage point the maintenance is down to account for the machines running at less than 100 percent efficiency. RSC says it is about 99 percent current on its preventative maintenance.

“Due to the precision approach and methodology employed to capture and calculate this data on an individual piece of equipment level, it was extremely time intensive,” Groman says. “It’s one thing to calculate carbon emissions. It’s another to calculate it in a precise manner, so our customers can drill down and use the data to help reduce its emissions.”

Information on emissions is currently being calculated and printed on every RSC invoice because the formulas are applicable to diesel powered equipment with hour metered engines, which reflects 88 percent of RSC equipment. “When a contract is closed out for our customers, based on the hours the equipment was used, it automatically triggers the calculation for the formula,” Groman says. Then, the printed invoice includes a line stating the amount carbon emissions, measured in tons.

Groman says the response from customers has been “extremely positive. Those who truly care about sustainability, really appreciate the approach we’ve taken, as it is critical to address sustainability with extreme integrity. Once they realize that it’s not just a simple calculation using broad averages, but that it is done with precision and as a result can help them reduce emissions, it makes a real difference.”

Now, Groman says, “since we have captured emissions data dating back to Jan. 1, 2008, we have the ability to provide specific dashboards to our customers with year-over-year comparisons for greenhouse gases as well as for criteria pollutants. Then, depending on our customer’s specific goals, we can drill down to more specific actionable information, by focusing on areas of greatest impact on their environmental footprint.”

The launch of the program coincided with the Environmental Protection Agency’s Final Mandatory Reporting of Greenhouse Gases Rule and President Obama’s Executive Order focused on federal sustainability, which emphasizes the critical need for emissions tracking data to help companies with regulatory compliance, voluntary reporting and carbon footprint reduction.

The recent regulations “highlight that we are coming into an age of greater accountability and transparency for climate change, and companies will want to partner with those that can assist them with reducing their carbon footprint. We are excited to provide this beneficial solution to all customers for free, as one more element of our premium offering,” Groman says.

“In a very transparent way we have basically disclosed the road map in our Q and A of the elements, what is being calculated and the assumptions. This was done with the hope that others would follow suit as it is good for the customers, good for the industry and good for the environment. Sustainability has obviously been a strategic focus for us for years and hope that it becomes that way for the industry as well,” he says.

For more information about RSC’s program, visit www.RSCrental.com/sustainability. Detailed reports also are available through the RSC Online customer portal and Total Control® Web-based asset management system.