Autotrader adds new sustainability rating to editorial car reviews
20th June 2025, London: Autotrader, the UK’s largest automotive marketplace, will add a new and trailblazing sustainability rating to its editorial new car reviews as part of its commitment to help consumers make more environmentally friendly vehicle choices.
The new ratings were announced at the Autotrader Drivers’ Choice Awards yesterday in London, which saw Car of the Year snapped up once again by an electric vehicle, the Kia EV3. EVs also dominated the awards winning 10 categories voted for by over 225,000 drivers, showing consumer satisfaction in EVs remains strong.
The green ratings will be a significant addition to Autotrader’s comprehensive editorial new car reviews which appear on the platform. These ratings will sit alongside ratings for running costs, reliability, safety, features, comfort and power. The green ratings will follow the same convention currently found on Autotrader, with a maximum possible five stars, including half stars.
Automotive data from one of the world’s most respectable sustainability organisations, World Benchmarking Alliance’s Climate and Energy Benchmark will be used to support the methodology behind the ratings. The metrics will also align with the methodology of fashion site goodonyou.eco, which creates similar assessments for the fashion industry and measures brands on transparency, strong policy assurances to address the most significant issues across their value chain. As part of the new ratings, Autotrader also aims to abide by the Government’s Green Claims campaign to ensure any environmental claims are genuinely green.
With both climate action and sustainability high on the agenda for governments and consumers alike around the world, including in the UK1, car owners are increasingly interested in knowing how environmentally friendly their cars really are. Consumers want to better understand the carbon footprint of their vehicles throughout their lifetime, from the sourcing of materials to water usage in manufacturing, the percentage of recycled content in a car and its tailpipe emissions. They also want to know which brands have embedded environmentally responsible behaviour in their organisations. Autotrader’s green ratings aim to hold car brands accountable for their role in reducing the impacts of climate change, both through consumer awareness and pressure from journalists via car reviews.
When awarding stars to a car, three of the five stars available (including half stars) will be awarded at model level. For example, a model may not get any stars if it is very fuel inefficient or has big emissions and little recyclable or recycled material. In contrast, another model could get three stars because it is electric, uses recycled aluminium and has reduced its weight over an outgoing model. The final two stars are determined at the brand level, based on how green the brand is in its behaviour and actions towards its sustainability efforts.
“In a world in which consumers are becoming increasingly sustainability-conscious and wanting to play their part in reducing their environmental impact, it’s vital the automotive industry plays its part. That’s why, as part of our ongoing commitment to help consumers make more environmentally friendly vehicle choices, we’ve created our new green ratings.
“Our scheme aims to be data-driven, transparent, fair and honest, whilst rooted in editorial expertise at both brand and model levels based on Autotrader’s decades-long working relationships with car brands. The new ratings will help car owners better understand the carbon footprint of these vehicles over the duration of ownership, as well as arming them with unique insights about how sustainable the supply chain is, including raw materials, so they can make an informed decision on their next car purchase with sustainability in mind.”
The first set of green ratings will go live by start of Autumn 2025 on the editorial section of the Autotrader platform here: https://www.autotrader.co.uk/cars/reviews
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