Bentley has released its fourth annual sustainability report and there is rather a lot silk-lined corporate incense going on. Crewe says fleet CO₂ fell to its lowest point in recent memory, not bad for a brand keen on V8,and W12 engines that drink like drag queens. Operations stayed carbon neutral, and the first fully electric Bentley remains due in 2026, which means the old aristocrat is adjusting its cravat while moving towards battery power. Being in two minds, it is keeping one polished brogue planted in the world of plug-in hybrids and combustion cars as a just-in-case, not wanting to repeat the Jaguar catastrophe.
Bentley is calling the strategy Beyond100+, The ludicrous nomenclature sounds like a members club for very posh environmentalists, yet the substance is more grounded than that. The company is folding genuine lifecycle analysis deeper into product planning and supplier decisions. It is leaning on Direct Air Capture experiments, using more Sustainable Aviation Fuel in logistics, and still talking up eFuels while it tries to decarbonise without turning the brand into just another joyless sermon.
Bentley is still signed up to the 2050 net zero ambition, but it is no longer pretending the twelve-cylinder indulgence will transform to silent electric grandeur overnight. Infrastructure remains patchy, buyers are wavering, and the luxury market did not suddenly wake up desperate to be lectured by a charging cable. So the brand is keeping PHEV and ICE powertrains in the mix while it readies the first EV reveal next year. It is cautious, yes, though also rather more honest than some of the industry theatre we have had to endure.
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ABOVE: Bentley’s greener push from design table to factory floor.
The first electric Bentley is where the talking stops
Reports like this are always dressed in the soft cashmere of noble intent, but the only line that truly matters is the one about the first fully electric Bentley arriving in 2026. Everything else is preamble, polishing cloth, and mood lighting until that car turns up. Either way it proves whether Crewe can translate old-world desirability into the electric age without producing a velvet-lined appliance for finance bros.
Bentley insists luxury, performance, and craftsmanship will not be diluted, and that is precisely as it should be. Nobody is paying Bentley money for a worthy eco-pod with walnut trim. Buyers want presence, tactility, and the faint sense that the thing might ruin a weekend in Monte Carlo if given half a chance. If the first EV lands with the grace of a bank vault and the soul of a duty-free perfume counter, all the carbon graphs in the world will not save it.
Carbon is not only in the tailpipe
To Bentley’s credit, the report does not reduce sustainability to whatever comes out of the exhaust. The wider push covers sourcing, logistics, manufacturing, and supplier engagement, which is where the hard, boring, expensive work lives. Anyone can issue a dreamy pledge over a flute of something pale. It takes a little more grit to pick through the full lifecycle of a luxury car and admit that the environmental bill arrives long before a customer presses the starter button.
Crewe remained carbon neutral through 2025, and Bentley says its fleet CO₂ output is now lower than before. That is worth noting, even if luxury car firms always look faintly comic when they speak in the language of restraint. This is still a company that built its reputation on great swathes of leather, walnut, chrome, and engines with enough torque to rearrange a small village. The trick now is to keep the theatre while trimming the damage, which is rather easier to print in a report than to engineer in metal.
Hybrid Models (WLTP Weighted Combined):
- Continental GT/GTC Hybrid: Approximately 93–98 g/km.
- Flying Spur Hybrid: Approximately 100 g/km.
- Bentayga Hybrid: Approximately 153 g/km.
Combustion Engine Models (Traditional Petrol):
- Bentayga V8 SUV: ~260–298 g/km.
- Continental GT V8 Coupe/Convertible: ~254–278 g/km.
With the shift toward plug-in hybrids and the move toward fully electric vehicles by 2030, Bentley is actively lowering its overall tailpipe emissions.
The people bit matters more than the brochure wants
Bentley also makes much of training, carbon literacy, future skills, and its community programmes, and I suspect this is where the report becomes more than glossy self-congratulation. A luxury manufacturer cannot stagger into electrification with half its workforce clinging to the past and the other half waiting for a consultant to explain batteries in a conference room with stale pastries. If the shift is going to work, the factory floor, design teams, suppliers, and retailers all have to be dragged along together, preferably without anyone being treated as disposable paper towel.
There is also something refreshing in Bentley admitting the road ahead will require resilience rather than blind zeal. Geopolitics is messy, infrastructure is uneven, customers are inconsistent, and the industry is in the middle of one of its ugliest little identity crises. Trump’s demented war has destablised the planet’s governments and it will take decades to fix. Against that backdrop, Beyond100+ looks less like a triumphal march and more like disciplined damage control with a Savile Row tailor. That may not sound romantic, but it is probably how real progress is made.
Bentley’s 2025 Sustainability Report does not ask us to believe the revolution is complete, and that is probably why it sounds plausible. The numbers have improved, the first EV is nearly here, and Crewe appears to understand that sustainable luxury cannot be sold as hair-shirt misery for the stinking rich. Nobody feels slightly sorry for the 1%. The next chapter is a make or break just as it is for other legacy car makers. Once the electric Bentley arrives, we will see. Will all this careful language be the prelude to a new kind of grandeur, or simply a wood-panelled holding pattern.
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Alan Zurvas is the founder and editor of Gay Car Boys, Australia's leading LGBTQI+ automotive publication. Before launching GCB in 2008, Alan's automotive writing was published in SameSame.com.au and the Star Observer. With over 16 years of hands-on car reviewing experience, Alan brings an honest, irreverent voice to every review — championing value and innovation over brand loyalty.
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