After last year’s success, LeasePlan returned to Davos in 2019 for the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting to help educate the leaders of over 1,800 organisations about the importance of switching to a sustainable fleet. It also offered LeasePlan the chance to connect with clients and suppliers, as well as providing the opportunity to listen to the expertise of other industry leaders in sustainability.
The theme at this year’s annual meeting was "Globalization 4.0: Shaping a Global Architecture in the Age of the Fourth Industrial Revolution" and featured a packed program, with sessions from business leaders, politicians, NGOs and more.
Ahead of the meeting, LeasePlan released its EV Readiness Index which showed the level of preparedness of different European countries for electric vehicles. The Index is designed to help companies with international fleets to go electric, as it enables them to identify in which countries it will be easiest to transition. Switching to electric is about thinking big, but starting small, and LeasePlan is trying to give all businesses the tools to do this.
On Tuesday, LeasePlan attended a session in association with the Global Battery Alliance: "Building a Circular Value Chain for Batteries". This session presented opportunities to discuss the potential for building a circular economy for batteries with key representatives across the industry. As the electric vehicle market develops, there will be growing demand to find recycling solutions for batteries and this session helped LeasePlan begin to explore some ways of doing this.
Our CEO Tex Gunning sat on a panel on Wednesday, titled "Building a Clean Mobility Future". The objective of the session was to stimulate collaboration and knowledge sharing across the electric vehicle value chain, as the shift to zero emissions is a global challenge that no one can solve individually.
On Thursday Tex Gunning spoke on the "Electric Vehicle Future: The Power of Fleets" panel. This session with public and private sector leaders explored the optimal conditions, strategies, and policies for accelerating zero emissions vehicle adoption, with a particular focus on fleets.
To conclude our participation in the event, LeasePlan hosted a dinner on Thursday evening to focus on how to develop a last mile delivery infrastructure that meets consumer and business demand, but which also addresses growing concerns around air quality, climate change and congestion. The speakers included Tex Gunning as well as Peter Bakker, CEO of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development and Jesper Brodin, the CEO of Ikea.