Formula One teams agree that the sport must respond in a responsible way to the environmental challenges we face. Here, the leading figures in three major Formula One teams express their thoughts on eco-technology, environmental initiatives and the sport’s green future.

Ross Brawn, Team Principal, Honda Racing F1

"The pressure on the modern world to address the causes of climate change is continually increasing and Formula One is not exempt from this. The FIA and the teams recognise that it is our responsibility to be involved in change for the good and to accelerate these changes through the technology and competition of F1.

"At Honda, we strongly support the engineering challenge that the introduction of environmental technologies such as KERS provides. Honda has been developing more efficient and lower emission products for decades and the application of fuel efficient and alternative fuel technologies has been intrinsic to our automotive product development.

"The involvement of F1 in research into engines, electronics and the forthcoming regenerative braking systems will drive such developments forward and speed up the introduction of environmental technologies which will filter back to mass production passenger cars and be of great benefit to the environment and consumers.

"The great thing about competitive motorsport is that it accelerates development and with the F1 field currently working on KERS, the rate of progress in that technology is greatly increased.

"F1 should certainly be looking to introduce further environmentally-focused regulations in future. To develop hybrid and heat recovery technologies which can then be used on road cars demonstrates that F1 can play an important role in developing energy efficient and environmentally friendly technologies.

"Since the launch of our earthdreams initiative at the beginning of the 2007 season, we have had fantastic support from within the Honda family and from our team partners. With more and more organisations understanding the importance of the environmental agenda, we are finding many of our current partners are benefiting from this initiative and using the message it portrays to showcase their own environmental working practices.

"Our earthdreams initiative is at the core of our team culture and it is important that we strive to do our best to minimise our impact on the environment in the course of our business. We are showing that running a business that is as highly pressured as F1 and doing the right thing can be entirely complementary."

Adam Parr, CEO, WilliamsF1

"Environmental technology is important in F1 for two reasons. Firstly, for the sustainability of the sport and secondly for our contribution to society.

"As an independent team our ability to raise revenues to go racing is subject to our partners’ thinking on sustainability. We also have to bring in the types of partner we would like to sponsor our team. They are typically blue chip corporates who are, without exception, conscious of the need to be sustainable and to address sustainability in the way they do business.