On conjunction with this week’s Earth Day, Cox Automotive featured some of its ongoing initiatives to increase sustainability throughout the vehicle journey, ranging from technology such as solar power to simple solutions like recycling cardboard.

Those efforts are part of Cox Conserves, a year-round program designed by parent company Cox Enterprises to be good stewards of the plant by driving measurable environmental change through carbon reduction, water conservation, circularity and habitat protection.

The initiatives include:

Reusing water in wholesale operations: In a pilot program underway at its Manheim Nashville wholesale operating location, Cox Automotive is using a modular water reuse system that captures water from the reconditioning car wash lanes, treats it and reuses it — reducing the amount of water drawn from the local municipal supply.

The shipping-container-sized unit, built by 4Earth, includes smart technology that can be run via a digital dashboard with remote monitoring. The system is projected to save up to 1.2 million gallons of water per year from the estimated 125,000 cars Manheim Nashville washes annually.

In a news release, Cox said it’s evaluating the pilot to see if it can be scaled to all of Manheim’s 80-plus locations.

Powering EVs with the sun: With EV wholesale volume continuing to grow, Cox has installed two solar-powered canopies over its vehicle intake lanes at Manheim San Francisco. The canopies provide supplemental renewable power for the EV chargers used to charge vehicles as they arrive.

Together, Cox said, the new installations generate some 600,000 kilowatt hours of onsite solar energy each year, reducing the location’s carbon footprint by 134 tons.

Manheim San Francisco also features rooftop solar panels and additional solar canopies that also support EV charging. The company said the facility now generates a total of more than 1.3 million kilowatt‑hours of clean electricity each year from onsite solar assets, reducing its carbon footprint by nearly 300 tons annually.

EV battery responsibility: Through its EV Battery Solutions business, Cox recycled more than 13,000 EV battery packs in 2025, keeping critical materials in circulation and out of landfills.

Recycling: Cox pointed out not all sustainability efforts are high-tech, citing the EV Battery Solutions operation, which reuses nearly every component of the shipping materials required as it handles and processes EV batteries. That includes cardboard packaging and wooden pallets, which are recovered and repurposed as batteries are processed and redistributed, reducing waste and keeping materials in circulation.

Going digital to reduce paper waste: Throughout April, Cox Automotive’s Dealertrack brand, a provider of dealership workflow and financing software, is encouraging dealerships to move more of their deal processes online, away from paper — including credit applications, contracts and eSignatures.

User data from Dealertrack’s Digital Contracting Calculator shows dealers can save an average of $50 per deal in paper, toner, printing, shipping and form charges by going digital, the company said.

As part of the “It Pays To Go Paperless” campaign, trees are being planted through a partnership with the Arbor Day Foundation, supported by Cox Conserve, to reduce paper use while contributing to forest restoration.