EMW: Foundation awards €0.5M to car sharing organisations
Two car sharing organisations have won a total of EUR 500,000 in a tender for the best idea to simultaneously expand the market for car sharing and stimulate environmental innovation.
Wheels4All and Greenwheels convinced the panel of experts that their proposed projects will benefit the environment and at the same time create a broader user-base.
Five companies presented their ideas at Wednesday’s award ceremony. The competition was organised by the DOEN Foundation, which "focuses mainly on initiatives that have a strong business base and a clear social component," according to its website.
Greening the Randstad
Greenwheels won the main prize of €400,000 for its plan to green the "Randstad," the expansive urbanised area of the western Netherlands. The plan focuses on reducing the pressure on the valuable land in the Randstad’s historical city centres. "In terms of area, our plan makes available a total of 60 soccer pitches," said Mr. Jan Borghuis, one of the company’s founders.
Gijs van Lookeren Campagne (l), Jan Borghuis (Greenwheels) and Henry Mentink (Wheels4All). (Photo: Michel Porro.)
To further convince the panel of their good intentions, Mr. Borghuis emphasized the inherent dedication of his company to greening the transportation system. "We don’t want to get people out of public transport (PT) into our cars. We have from the very start believed in the combination of PT and car sharing."
A shared car in every neighbourhood
Wheels4All, a non-profit car sharing organisation, was awarded a sum of €100,000. Mr. Henry Mentink, the organisation’s chairman, explained that the key aspect of their plan is to mobilise people through social (neighbourhood) networks, both on and offline. The best marketing tool they could imagine is people spreading the news about car sharing by word of mouth. Within the bottom-up Wheels4All scheme, people initiate a shared vehicle arrangement themselves.
Particularly noteworthy is the organisation’s attention to specific groups of users, such as people in peripheral areas and the disabled. All signs are positive that a vehicle for the wheelchair-dependent will be added to the organisation’s fleet at the beginning of next year.
Missing bits
The panel of judges did critcise the contenders for their lack of a general vision and for not taking possible future scenarios into account. Furthermore, it was not convinced that co-operation with competitors and relevant stakeholders, such as local governments, was sufficiently interwoven into the plans presented.
We will relate the progress of the two initiatives and provide an update if the panel’s critiques spark a reaction.
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