Sunbelt Rentals attend the European Rental Conference and Awards Ceremony 2024

The ERA awards are a fantastic opportunity to showcase achievements to customers and local communities and be recognised as an industry leader. Held at the prestigious EPIC Sana Marques hotel in Lisbon, this year we were honoured to be shortlisted for the ERA Sustainability Committee Award and attend both the awards evening and two-day conference, where members of the team were exposed to forward-looking industry discussions centred around sustainability, net zero targets, and emerging AI technologies.

The Rental Industry undoubtedly have a large part to play in driving sustainable practises: future investments must focus on sustainable and lower emission solutions, especially in the energy and temporary power space, as well as a need to capture scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions to facilitate the Rental Industry path to net zero.  

The ERA Conference:

The conference started with a focus on how to track and reduce these scope 1 and 2 emissions, with key speakers sharing best practise in both reporting and solutions to drive the ‘easier to track and trace’ emissions down.

Douglas McLuckie, Managing Director of ESG at Ashtead Group and chair of the ERA sustainability committee, provided a presentation focused on the new ERA carbon reporting guidance, which involved delivering a report on Ashtead Group’s own scope 3 emissions. These types of emissions are known to be the most challenging to track, but Douglas shared valuable insights with fellow industry professionals on what can be achieved. He also highlighted Sunbelt Rentals efforts in reducing our carbon footprint and emphasised the importance of calculating emissions to establish targets and implement effective reduction strategies.

The following day, we were invited to participate in four distinct workshops. The first workshop focused on Promotion and National Associations, looking at promoting working in Rental for a sustainable future. The second workshop was on Sustainability, where we explored the best practices for promoting and utilising carbon reporting guidance. The third workshop, Future, examined the impact of AI on the equipment rental industry.

Lastly, we had the Technical Workshop, where Matt Ross, Asset Innovation Manager at Sunbelt Rentals, presented on behalf of the ERA technical committee. The session began with presentations highlighting the committee's work over the past year, followed by an industry discussion on the 'Energy Transition' from a technical perspective. A key focus of the workshop was on the limitations and challenges faced by rental companies, OEMs, and customers when transitioning to greener or more sustainable assets. The discussion also explored the varying rates of adoption across different regions and countries.

A roundtable survey was later conducted, where attendees commented and voted on key areas such as communication, financial incentives and capital increases, infrastructure, customer resistance, and enhancing reputation through early adoption. Each table then selected the most pertinent questions and proposed approaches to address these challenges or facilitate the transition. The ERA team are currently collating the final results, with plans to draft a guidance document for all companies within the rental cycle in Europe, outlining strategies to overcome and prepare for the predicted challenges.

Challenges and Learnings in the Industry:

The conference provided a platform for sharing best practices and innovations: paving the way for others to follow and accelerate their own net zero journeys. What’s clear from the conference is that the UK Rental Market are currently leading the way when it comes to driving sustainability: with the solutions tabled in several discussions as ‘goals for others’ already in place. We must be the ones to drive change and, along with OEMS, we must lead in educating end users and hirers in best practice.  

To make this a reality across the continent, Rental companies must commit to investing in renewable energy technologies and implementing sustainable practices across their business. This will require support from OEMs to help educate customers on how to utilise these technologies to not only reduce carbon impact, but to drive down overall costs.

There are undoubtedly challenges to overcome when it comes to investing in sustainable equipment, and this was evident in feedback from the conference, with cost and customer demand emerging as two recurring themes that may hinder future investments. And whilst sustainable products often come with higher costs to hire and a need to educate both internal personnel on maintenance and external customers on best use, they also offer more than CO2 savings and long-term commercial savings.

At Sunbelt Rentals we are already leading the way with multiple sustainable solutions available to our customers now, with over 800 battery storage units in fleet, stage v plant and generators, solar arrays, energy management systems and peak power support units, and the UK’s largest fleet of solar and hybrid lighting solutions.

In almost all cases with businesses wanting to implement a sustainable solution, a cleaner energy solution or hybrid lighting solution will save the end user money, through reduced fuel consumption, costs, and increased efficiency.

The key takeaway from the ERA conference is that as best practices continue to evolve, it is imperative that we work together to combat climate change, embrace emerging technologies, and protect our planet’s longevity.