European Rental Award 2020

By MEq July 6, 2020 15:58

For more than ten years now, the “European Rental Award” has been organized jointly by KHL Group, the magazine International Rental News and the European Rental Association and is awarded in various categories. The awards are intended to honor the best equipment manufacturers for their products, services, and global approach taken toward equipment renters. This year’s awards ceremony was held as an online event for the first time due to the Covid-19 pandemic and attracted more than 500 registered delegates. The jury, represented by 19 major European rental companies, awarded prizes in 6 categories.

Rental Product of the Year – Wacker Neuson
This year, the jury selected Wacker Neuson’s Dual View dumpers as “Rental Product of the Year”. Dual View allows the operator to conveniently and quickly change the seat position through a 180-degree rotation of the entire operator control panel and the seat console. This always gives the operator a perfect view in the direction of travel – during transport, loading and unloading.

The Dual View dumpers DV60, DV90 and DV100 provide an unrestricted view in every situation. The seat console and the control panel can be rotated conveniently from the operator’s seat by simply unlocking the console and then turning it to define the direction of view and travel. Dual View unfurls its strengths in particular on small confined construction sites, such as in urban areas, in tunnels or on busy roads: The operator steers the wheel dumper with the skip in the travel direction on the construction site, loads or unloads it with a full view of the loading area and, after a 180-degree rotation of the seat, drives away again in the same way with a free line-of-sight without having to turn the vehicle. In this way, he always has the working environment in full view, which means significantly more safety. Even a fully loaded skip no longer blocks the view, because the operator leaves the skip behind during travel, as with a truck.

Other time-tested and proven safety features, such as the hydrostatic drive, the wear-free spring-loaded parking brake, as well as the operation via joystick, which can be used to guarantee that the operator always keeps a hand on the steering wheel, ensure the simple and intuitive operation of the Dual View dumpers.

Sustainability award – Volvo CE
Volvo Construction Equipment (Volvo CE) has scooped the Best Sustainable Rental Project of the Year Award for its Energy management. This independent recognition from the rental industry is a testament to the company’s long term focus on sustainability, and outstanding ability to achieve significant environmental sustainability improvements. The energy management initiative that secured the award, is just one of the many projects in the company’s focus on environmental care. The success of the program lies in building a company-wide embedded culture dedicated to avoiding waste energy and continuously improving.

Volvo CE has been a member of the WWF Climate Savers program since 2012 and its 2015-2020 commitment was about making a significant reduction in its global energy consumption and therefore its CO2 output throughout the value chain, demonstrating industry leadership and developing innovations towards a low carbon society. In the last five years, the company has:
• Implemented more than 50 GWh’s of energy savings
• Switched half of its global energy supply to 100% renewable sources
• Reduced its idle electricity use by 48%
• Reduced its energy use per unit delivered to its customers by 27%
• Started a journey of CO2 neutral production facilities – Braas, in Sweden, is already 100% neutral factory since 2014.

Technical Committee Award – Manitou
Manitou Group, a worldwide reference in the handling, access platforms, and earthmoving, won the “Technical Committee Award” at the “European Rental Awards 2020.” This award recognizes the group for the quality of its work on the rental market. Of the 20 manufacturers selected, Manitou Group won the “ERA Technical Committee Award” for its global approach to meeting the expectations of the major rental companies. The jury acknowledged Manitou Group’s very strong partnership with the ERA (European Rental Association)since its creation and the attention paid to requests from rental companies, especially on safety and environmental issues.