When it comes to lowering a fleet’s carbon footprint and contributing to a cleaner environment, electric vehicles and alternatively fueled powertrains receive most of the hype. Yet, there are ways to operate a more sustainable fleet without transitioning to an electrified fleet or interrupting operations. One way is simply by switching to more sustainable vehicle oils.
“Fleet customers are looking for ways to decarbonize their existing operations, and we recognize that the powertrain pathway for commercial vehicles is going to be diverse, and it’s going to be ... a little bit complicated,” Andreas Osbar, president and CEO of Castrol Americas, told FleetOwner. “We believe, though, that a combustion engine—irrespective of what kind of fuel it takes—will have a long pathway still in the U.S. And for these customers, we have now something that helps them to lower their Scope 3 emissions for the foreseeable future.”
Castrol recently debuted a new product line in collaboration with Safety-Kleen. The product line, MoreCircular, uses recycled base oils, then cleans, re-refines, and reformulates the oil to bring it up to the same quality standard as a virgin base oil, Osbar said. In this way, Castrol takes the oil refining process from linear—sending refined virgin oil to customers for them to discard after use—to a circular process. The new lineup debuted in Las Vegas at the Advanced Clean Transportation Expo.
“We believe this is a great way for our customers to combine a low-carbon lubricant solution together with the high-quality lubrication solution that customers associate with Castrol,” Osbar said.
See also: Castrol launches MoreCircular to reduce carbon footprint
High quality, low emissions
One might find it hard to believe that recycled oil can offer the same quality as virgin oil, but Osbar explained that it does because of Castrol’s re-refining process.
