It was not without a little trepidation that we agreed to get up ridiculously early to visit a new automotive client in the European hometown of their current president for our kick-off meeting last week. But after a 4.30am start (I did say it was ridiculous) we headed off fuelled with Lufthansa's finest coffee to BMW's Innovation Centre in Munich, while the petrolheads in the office could hardly contain their envy.

Perhaps somewhat ironically (having taken a taxi, a plane, a train and a tube to get to our destination but *helpless shrug* needs must) the main discussion at our meeting was on sustainability. It's an issue that has for the first time in the industry's history now taken precedence over safety as the biggest challenge for the world's automotive engineering community.

In PR terms it makes for a really interesting conversation. Sure we all know that "petrol cars = bad for the environment" but how many of us are also aware that "electric cars = actually more carbon-intensive than the humble combustion engine until we get our renewables strategy sorted out?"

But with the world's media ever more focused on mankind's environmental impact, it's easy to get carried away with the hype. And so begins the debate, much discussed here and here among others: what is the role of the car in the low carbon society of the future?  

              Some impressive BMW innovation spotted in London W6 this weekend

With our heads brimming full of ideas and buzzing with newly discovered knowledge, we began our return journey. Unfortunately despite the very efficient instructions given to us on how to get back to Munich Airport, we got distracted while discussing various possible storylines and found ourselves hurtling in the wrong direction with a rapidly ticking clock.

And then we had one of those strange but brilliant European experiences where every person on the train was not only friendly and informed about the region's train timetable, but also able to explain where we'd gone wrong in perfect English and direct us back in the right direction. A big danke schön to our fellow travellers that day.

We made our flight with moments to spare, and so we returned, feeling we had both physically (albeit accidentally) and intellectually gone an extra mile or two for our client that day. 

Ruth