Travel and Transport
Your second area of impact is in your travel practices. Driving cars in the course of your work (whether you have your own or pay your employees mileage to use theirs), and other forms of travel such as flying if you work across distant locations, is a source of emissions that can be difficult to cut without impairing your operations.
Here are some things to consider.
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Do you need to travel? The COVID crisis has taught us that online meetings have a far wider scope than we previously thought. Holding a meeting online can both cut your emissions and save you time. It won’t be suitable for all occasions – there are many benefits to face to face contact and being onsite – but it can be suitable for many situations.
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Can you use active transport? Active transport includes walking, cycling (including on an e-bike), scooting and other ways of getting around that do not involve burning fuel. This is likely to be more appropriate for some staff than others (depending on health and disability issues) and more appropriate for short journeys. As an organisation, you also need to be mindful of health and safety considerations although this also applies to motorized transport.
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Can you use public transport? The other option aside from driving a car or going by cab/ride-share is using your community’s public transport – trains, buses, trams and ferries. Even if these are fossil-fuel powered they are significantly more energy-efficient per trip. Once again, this will be more or less feasible depending on your location (does your community have good public transport services?) the nature of the travel (are you going somewhere on a public transport route, and to just one location?) and the employee concerned (for instance, some otherwise good public transport services are not disability accessible).
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What vehicles are you using? If you have your own fleet, you can lower your footprint by purchasing more fuel-efficient vehicles, including hybrids and even electric vehicles.
The other way you can lower your footprint is by making choices that affect how your staff travel to and from work.