The largest source of carbon emissions relating to your business are likely to be those relating to transport. Some of those will relate to suppliers and how they ship products to your premises, and you can negotiate with them to find ways to reduce those emissions. However, the lion’s share of the transport emissions will probably relate to the means by which your customers, visitors and colleagues travel to and from your business premises. Tempting as it might be to think those are not emissions associated with your business, or over which you have any sway, they are technically scope three emissions and your business depends upon them to survive so they are key to your own sustainability.
Those are the emissions we are going to tackle in this blog.
Getting your team on board
Running a typical hospitality or tourism business, the majority of your team will need attend your premises in person, so homeworking is unlikely to be an option. Given that you know where they live, measuring and monitoring their commutes and modes of transport will give you a clear picture of their carbon impact, enable you to talk to them about that impact and look at ways in which you can work together to reduce it.
Foot and pedal power
There are a number of proactive ways you can work with your team to reduce their impact. Walking or cycling are invariably the lowest carbon means of getting to work and have positive health implications for those choosing that option. Communicating those health advantages will be a start but you could accelerate the uptake of bikes in lots of ways. Perhaps subsidising or providing loans for bikes, lights and cycling gears. Providing dedicated storage for bikes, repair kits and charging for e-bikes will all help incentivise cyclists and make them feel valued. Creating changing and showering spaces will also help encourage people to take to two wheels and ensure they arrive feeling fresh and ready for work.
Going Public
Of course, distances will not always be appropriate for human-powered means of transport. Public transport is invariably the next best means of commuting in carbon terms. Encouraging people onto buses or trains will often help make those forms of transport more efficient and reduce the risk of reductions in local services. You can help staff use these services by being accommodating (for example, if taking the bus means a staff member arrives at five past nine, allow for that or permit them to leave earlier, if they need to catch the last bus). You could also consider giving advances to take advantage of season tickets and possibly even subsidise travel on public transport. If your business is located in an outlying or remote area you could arrange for a shared collection service from the nearest transport hub.
Taking the carbon out of cars
With the best will in the world, it will not always be possible for members of your team to be able to get to work under their or anybody else’s steam (if public transport is limited in your area). Organising a car-sharing scheme will reduce emissions considerably. The more people that travel in the same car, the higher the saving. Providing staff charging facilities at-cost will also help drivers switch to electric cars and you could accelerate the shift by offering salary sacrifice schemes for EV purchases.
Getting customers on board
Assessing the carbon impacts of customers’ journey to hotels, accommodation, tourism attractions or meetings is an extremely complex task. It would involve huge amounts of data capture and complex calculations when travellers had multiple destinations. As a result, no one has yet developed an effective metric to measure or monitor the carbon impact of guests’ journeys to and from tourism and business travel venues.
However, this doesn’t mean there is nothing you can do. With an increasing number of tourists and travellers seeking the most sustainable options, advice on how to get to you sustainably will speak volumes about your commitment to sustainable practices and predispose them to do all they can to help. There is a myriad of ways you can help customers reduce the impact of their travel and many of these will count as credits for your Green Tourism Award.
- Tell visitors how to get to you, sustainably
- Create a sustainable transport page on your website
- Provide details of all public transport options
- Publicise active travel information
- If access is only possible by car, give precise directions promoting the most fuel-efficient driving routes
- EV charging points are a great draw as more and more people embrace new technology (grant funding is still available for these in some areas)
- Include an EV charging station map on your website to help people plan their route
- Promote active travel options for visitors once they are there
- Provide bikes and e-bikes for customers to rent during their stay
- Market interesting places to visit in the area that can be reached on foot or by bike
- Market your bike storage and charging facilities
- Promote washing and changing facilities for active travellers
International transport emissions
These are the emissions that put land-based transport emissions in the shade. Airlines will, no doubt, use offsetting products to try and mitigate their customers’ emissions but you could provide helpful information that help your customers make better decisions, like using train or sleeper connections rather than connecting flights. Take off and landing account for 50% of the emissions of most flights, so simply reducing the number of flights they take will have a significant impact on the impact of their journeys.
Make a plan
Most businesses are a long way off from having a formal sustainable travel policy in place, but you can take a step in the right direction by starting an action plan. Create a spreadsheet to track, for example, travel expenses, fuel usage, and transport maintenance costs to identify where you can make improvements. You may be pleasantly surprised – there are often financial savings to be made as well as carbon ones.
