When you own or operate a business, it is quite often the case that you have employee’s. Having employee’s is a natural part of having a business for most owners, unless you are a owner/operator, who works alone. While there are many aspects of owning and operating a sustainable business that you do have control over, one of them you will often have little direct control over is the sustainability of your employee’s choice of travel to and from work.
There is however some ways that you can potentially overcome this being out of your control and look at ways to either make it easy for your employees to make better decisions on how they travel to work. To encourage more sustainable methods to be used. There are many different options available but lets take a look at a couple of the more common,
- Car Pooling - The bigger your business the more chance that some of the employees live in similar area’s. When this happens, there is potential for employee’s to car pool, and not just save money, but help the environment. The employee’s can save money by sharing the costs of getting to work. Additionally there can be a decent reduction in emissions. For example 3 employee’s who car pool could take it turn about to drive, and only pay the expenses of getting to work once every third week, or through mutual decision share the expenses. In doing so rather then driving 3 cars to get 3 people to work, now only one is being used, saving the additional emissions of 2 cars.
- Public Transport – Another alternative is to ensure your business is public transport friendly. In other words, especially if you have not located your business yet, look at the public transport options when finding an office or space to lease. Having rail and/or bus stations near by where you place your office, makes it easier for your employee’s to make use of these options to get to and from work. For every employee that uses public transport it takes one car off the road. While the emissions savings are not entirely the total of taking that car off the road, there can be significant emission savings if a larger portion of your employees make use of public transport.
- Company Cars – While many companies provide or at least make allowances available for some employee’s for a company car, consideration should be taken on what is the most environmentally conscious option. Where the company provides the car, choosing eco friendly models should be a part of the decision on which models to use. Where an allowance is made available to employee’s it may be worth considering additional incentives to choose environmentally friendly models.
While there is really at the moment, no real cost effective options, if any options at all. Which will allow the employee to leave little if no emissions footprint, in their commute to work. It could be a potential positive to encourage your employees to consider the different options.