Several automakers are at the UN Climate Change Conference or COP26 this week. We're now in the second half of the event after many of the more important heads of state have went home. Many of those automakers are recommitting to carbon neutrality in Copenhagen, while Bentley just re-certified its Crewe headquarters as carbon neutral for the third time. But that's not the important part, the important part is that it has reduced its use of carbon offset credits by 81% in the same time period.

Carbon offsets are one of the more controversial tactics to combat climate change. Basically, companies that produce a lot of pollution can pay other companies to cut or remove greenhouse gasses from the atmosphere. When companies talk about net carbon neutral, they mean the balance of their pollution, minus the offsets.

In Crewe, 100% of Bentley's power and gas now come from renewable sources. Some of that is from the 7.7-mW solar array, which we can see charging a Bentayga Hybrid in the photos. It also has three new energy-efficient 5.5-mW boilers that reduce power consumption. Additionally, it has 130 charging points around the campus, for future Bentley hybrids and BEVs.

"Over the last two decades Bentley has taken a pioneering approach to sustainable entrepreneurship; creating a high quality, low environmental-impact, highly efficient production facility here in Crewe," said Peter Bosch, board member for manufacturing. "We are committed to reducing off-setting and our team is continually implementing great solutions to reduce our impact year-on-year. Our ultimate aim is to create a net climate positive manufacturing footprint by 2030."

There are still vehicles on the site that need fuel. Some things can't be transported without them, and emergency services still thrive on it. For those, Bentley installed a 34,000-liter tank of Green D+, a renewable liquid fuel that reduces CO2 emissions by 86% compared to regular diesel.

We'll also note that all-electric and carbon neutral aren't the same thing, or even mutually exclusive. Brands like Mercedes and Cadillac are pledging their cars will be all-electric, but not that their plants will necessarily be carbon neutral. And Bentley making it to carbon neutral, especially net neutral, doesn't mean all of its cars will be electric.