Certified by Carbon Neutral Investments (CNI), McLaren Mercedes becomes the world’s first 100 percent carbon-neutral Formula 1 team.

And while they were busy selecting appropriate and relevant initiatives to offset the team’s carbon footprint, Red Bull won all the races!

It is great the McLaren is so aware of the environment, but they are first a Formula 1 team and their primary goal is to win races. It is obvious when half of your team are working on carbon neutral stuff, you won’t have enough power and resources to design a fast car and win.

In addition to carbon offsetting with CNI, Vodafone McLaren Mercedes has implemented a series of efficiency-driven measures to reduce CO₂ emissions ‘at source’ within the McLaren Technology Centre – where annual savings of more than 1500a tonnes of CO₂ emissions have been achieved.

Vodafone McLaren Mercedes team principal, Martin Whitmarsh, said: “Today’s announcement is the strongest possible proof that we’ve gone farther than any other Formula 1 team in becoming more environmentally sympathetic and efficient – an achievement that’s of great importance not only to our organisation but to all our partners too.”He added: “This is a considerable achievement: the result of a lot of hard work by a number of extremely dedicated individuals, and a testament to our philosophy of continuous improvement.”

CNI co-chairman, James Brown, said: “Vodafone McLaren Mercedes leads the way across F1, and certainly does so in terms of environmental initiatives: the first F1 team to achieve the Carbon Trust Standard, recognition by the Government’s Carbon Reduction Commitment Energy Efficiency Scheme and a whole host of initiatives at the McLaren Technology Centre. In working with us at CNI, the team has closed the gap between being carbon efficient and carbon neutral.”

He added: “Allowing companies to improve on their carbon efficiency measures and realise carbon neutrality is what we do, and have done across motorsport and the automotive industry. We hope other teams in F1 will now follow Vodafone McLaren Mercedes’ lead.”