Staff travel
Why is it important for me to consider staff travel in the context of sustainability?
The damage being done to the environment by emissions from various means of transportation, in particular aeroplanes and cars, is well known. The Environmental Audit Committee’s report 'Reducing Emissions from Transport' found that transport is the only sector in the UK economy where carbon emissions were higher in 2004 than in the baseline year, 1990. Every organisation has a part to play in tackling this issue.
There are also savings to be made from minimising staff travel and helping to reduce congestion, particularly on the roads. The 'Eddington Transport Study' found that congestion on England’s roads, if unchecked, will increase costs to businesses and freight by over £10bn a year, while a 5% reduction in travel time for all business travel on the roads could generate around £2.5bn of cost savings – some 0.2% of GDP.
How can sustainability be taken into account in relation to staff travel?
The OGC Buying Solutions website provides a Top Ten Travel Tips page which gives users a quick checklist of simple activities that can be undertaken to improve the sustainability of staff travel.
At a more detailed level, an organisation seeking to reduce the impact of its travel on the environment should develop a Travel Plan. The Department for Transport describes the purpose of Travel Plans as
“reducing car use for travel to work and for travel for business. A plan is typically a package of practical measures to encourage staff to choose alternatives to single-occupancy car-use, and to reduce the need to travel at all for their work.”
Travel plans therefore typically look at two issues: how staff travel to work and how they travel for business.
In relation to how staff travel to work, a good travel plan should seek to:
- reduce the need to travel at all by facilitating home working;
- encourage the use of public transport, cycling, and walking to get to work; and
- encourage car-sharing to reduce the number of lone-occupancy cars being driven to work.
In relation to business travel, a travel plan should seek to:
- reduce travel as far as possible by providing the facilities for and encouraging the use of teleconferencing and video-conferencing. This is a consideration that should also be taken into account more generally as part of local business planning processes;
- where travel is essential, encourage the use of the most environmentally-friendly mode of transport appropriate in the circumstances and encourage route planning to avoid travel blackspots;
- where an organisation has several sites between which staff travel regularly, consider providing a staff shuttle service; and
- where an organisation has a vehicle fleet, ensure that environmental considerations are given due weight in deciding which models to purchase.
The Metropolitan Police have produced a Sustainable Travel Plan which forms part of their Environmental Strategy.
There are a number of websites and toolkits that have been developed to help organisations integrate sustainability into their travel; examples include the following.
- The Department for Transport, which has a comprehensive section of its website dedicated to travel plans. Resources include travel plan guides, links to case studies and research reports about making travel plans work.
- The Energy Saving Trust website, which has a number of useful resources, including case studies and tips on fleet management.
- The NHS Good Corporate Citizenship Toolkit provides links to a large number of publications and tools for both the NHS and of wider application.
- The Travelwise website provides links to existing resources and travel plan case studies.