AEEE Releases White Paper On Green Vehicle Rating, India’s First Vehicle Rating System Based On Environment Performance

Alliance for an Energy Efficient Economy (AEEE) today released a white paper illustrating the five key steps instrumental in calculating the ratings on the Green Vehicle Rating tool, India’s first vehicle rating system based on environmental performance. The white paper brings out the approach, assumptions, and analytical process used to calculate the ratings to provide model-specific information on BS VI compliant two-wheeler models (both ICE vehicles and EVs).

Designed to create evidence-based awareness in consumers and shift their demand towards greener variants that rely on low emissions technology and high fuel economy, GVR calculates ratings based on five steps: Data Collection, Classification of Emissions Impact, Monetisation, Normalisation and Calculation of Cost and Score.

As per the white paper, the first and most crucial step in the rating process is data collection. There are two types of data being collected – emissions data (on both upstream and tailpipe emissions) and data on vehicle specifications (technical and financial) basis the Form 22, a government mandated pollution disclosure document that is to be provided by the auto-makers. Consumers in most instances are unaware of this form and are unable to utilise this critical information prior to making a vehicle purchase. This is followed by the classification of emissions impact, where air pollutants and GHG emissions are classified in terms of their impact on health and the environment.

Once the emissions are classified, GVR aids consumers to purchase clean, efficient vehicles. For this, GVR translates the effects of air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions into economic terms, by ascertaining the monetary value of vehicles’ impact on human health, climate, and environment per kilometre (₹/km).

In the next step, the reference vehicle model is selected for the process of normalisation. The environmental and health damage costs of each model are normalised against the environmental and health costs of a 'Reference Vehicle'. The final step is the calculation of the real cost of ownership and GVR ratings of the models. For EVs, GVR first estimates the battery's actual energy consumption to calculate the emissions.

Speaking at the launch of the white paper, Dr Satish, President and Executive Director, Alliance for an Energy Efficient Economy (AEEE) said, “Demand-side interventions can influence consumers to purchase environmentally friendly vehicles. This will have a ripple effect on the supply-side where the manufacturers are required to bring low-carbon technologies into the market. However, to achieve this, there needs to be better, transparent, fact-checked and technically sound info for consumers in India to apprise them of the environmental performance of vehicles and influence their purchasing behaviour. The need is to address this information gap.

Green Vehicle Rating is one such resource that acts as a conduit for consumers to compare different vehicle models based on Real Cost of Ownership, taking into account the damage costs from criteria pollutants and GHGs.”

GVR as a consumer information tool bridges a critical information gap related to the vehicle’s environmental performance. A consumer-led shift in demand will enable the transportation ecosystem to progress towards green mobility. AEEE had rolled out the Green Vehicle Rating (GVR-I) in 2018. In its second phase launched in 2021, GVR-II has incorporated 28 ICE two-wheeler models and 33 Electric Vehicle (EV) two wheeler models as part of its vehicle database.