[Auto] Creature comforts: How Bentley is going green with bat boxes

[-TITAN]

 

 

Thanks to the efforts of its customisation arm producing various special editions, well-heeled nature fans are well catered for by Bentley. There’s the Bentayga Falconry by Mulliner, which offers saker falcon owners a built-in flight station and accessories including binoculars and a Bentley-branded bird hood. Or there’s the Bentayga Fly Fishing by Mulliner, with its customised tackle box and waterproof storage trunk to house your soggy waders.

But even the most pampered bird of prey would likely cast an envious eye at Bentley’s newest creations, designed for the humble pippistrelle bat and blue tit. While a certain crime-fighting superhero might enjoy a Bentayga Batmobile by Mulliner for a spot of luxury, instead of a customised SUV, Bentley is installing bird and bat boxes for these crucial residents of the British countryside to live in around the fringes of its Crewe factory.

 

 

 OPEN GALLERY

Bats can't drive a Bentayga, but they can commandeer a Bentley box

Bentley’s hives are currently home to around 300,000 bees

Alongside bee hives and bat boxes, the latest eco venture is an allotment

Expect Bentley-branded organic seasonal veg boxes soon

The Mexican free-tailed bat is the world’s fastest bat, capable of achieving speeds of up to 100mph

A completed box

Luxury honey is a welcome by-product of Bentley’s efforts

"There’s no certificate for increasing the biodiversity of a car park. But it’s the right thing to do"

Mulliner division caters for falconry buffs

 

Thanks to the efforts of its customisation arm producing various special editions, well-heeled nature fans are well catered for by Bentley. There’s the Bentayga Falconry by Mulliner, which offers saker falcon owners a built-in flight station and accessories including binoculars and a Bentley-branded bird hood. Or there’s the Bentayga Fly Fishing by Mulliner, with its customised tackle box and waterproof storage trunk to house your soggy waders.

But even the most pampered bird of prey would likely cast an envious eye at Bentley’s newest creations, designed for the humble pippistrelle bat and blue tit. While a certain crime-fighting superhero might enjoy a Bentayga Batmobile by Mulliner for a spot of luxury, instead of a customised SUV, Bentley is installing bird and bat boxes for these crucial residents of the British countryside to live in around the fringes of its Crewe factory.

Since Autocar figured building a bat box would prove marginally easier than making a luxury grand tourer, and to find out why a car firm was branching out into wildlife accommodation, we headed to the factory to help out. Spoiler alert: we weren’t much help.

 

The idea for the bird and bat boxes came from Andrew Robertson, Bentley’s long-time head of site planning. A motor industry veteran, Robertson has driven Bentley’s push to increase sustainability and reduce the environmental impact of its Crewe plant. But while it seems every car firm is trumpeting just that in 2020, it’s something he’s been pursuing for more than two decades.

That’s demonstrated by the certificates hanging on the factory walls to show the plant has achieved catchily titled ISO 14001 and 50001 environmental standards and a PAS 2060 carbon-neutral certification (for those without an intimate knowledge of such things, these two are pretty good, apparently), and by the various measures around the site designed to make building luxury cars as green as it can realistically be.

Bentley has made Crewe CO2-neutral – meaning any CO2 produced is reduced and offset – thanks to the efforts of Robertson and his team. These include switching the factory to a green energy mix, the use of biogas and the installation of 30,000 solar panels – 20,000 on the factory roof and 10,000 in the car park, giving a capacity of 7.7MW. He’s recently started rainwater harvesting and is finding ways to use food waste from the staff canteen.

Even so, Robertson wanted to do more. “We started looking into biodiversity,” he says. “We’re a semi-industrial site, and there’s a limit to what we can do, but we felt supporting wildlife was important.”

 

 

 

That meant more bird boxes – with a decision to place them closer to the more po[CENSORED]ted areas of the site in the hope more people could see them – and the expansion into bat boxes.

For those wondering, a bat box is similar to the bird-based version, except instead of having a small round hole in the front big enough for a tit to squeeze through, they’re accessed by slots in the bottom, while inside, at the top, there’s a handy pole from which the bats can hang.

This is where Autocar wanted to get involved with a bit of bat box building. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to do that for two reasons. The first is that Bentley currently buys in its bird and bat boxes, with only limited assembly required. Yes, in true car industry fashion, platform sharing exists even within the world of artificial roosts. But, of course, Bentley isn’t satisfied with that, so the boxes pass through its wood shop for a touch-up from expert carpenters who spend most of their time honing exquisite dashboards and other items for the interior of grand tourers.