Get The Template That Cuts Your Carbon Footprint

Tips

Mar 10

As I write this, I am visiting a client 2,500 miles away from home. I took the subway to the plane to an Uber to this hotel. Tomorrow I will take an Uber today to their office and then back the way I came. Traveling for work is important. Reducing our carbon footprint is important.

It’s critical to be aware of both and work to build and scale a business while considering the environmental impact of travel. Especially in service-based industries, travel will happen.

As always, knowledge is power. Allocating time to plan out a travel strategy, review habits and set goals is an important way to monitor travel and help the environment. Oftentimes, a review of travel saves money.

A roundtrip flight from JFK to San Francisco airport emits 1.4 tons of carbon emissions. An understanding of emissions will help employees understand the gravity of travel. Take these suggestions and tips to create a travel policy of your own and to start reflecting on the wider footprint of your business.

Have a Travel Policy

Make a travel policy for the company that includes measures like a rationale for in-person meetings, offsetting flights over a certain mileage, using rental hybrid cars exclusively, or curbing travel to a certain number of miles annually. A policy should include at a minimum:

Commitment to understanding the carbon footprint of travel
Important/Less Important travel designation
Plan to reduce or offset travel for all employees
Offset program if applicable
The policy should include air, road, hotel and other

Use the below information to help you construct a travel policy that makes sense for your business. You could also create travel policy by group, team, employee level or department.

The travel policy can be developed by your HR department or any employee you think has a good sense of company-wide travel. Take input from others and allow for a comment period for the policy. Make sure the policy has input from those that travel. If you have an existing travel policy add these environmental considerations.

Know Your Important Travel

Make a list of important conferences or meetings. This can be categorized by type or customer. It’s hard to know all the meetings that will come up in the year. If you categorize by the customer, marketing lead dollar amount or another relevant area, you can start chronicling qualifications for important travel.

Important travel is also inclusive of who is traveling. A practical way to save on travel mileage and cost is to decrease the number of employees traveling. Do five people need to attend a specific client meeting or can it be two in-person and three on the phone? These small tweaks have significant emissions reductions.

Conferences, Knowledge

This is part of knowing your important travel. Conferences are becoming resource hubs for business leaders and important in all types of industries. If your industry is dependent on conferences or other large group commitments, take that into account when making important travel distinctions.

Be a thought leader at the conference by asking the hosts to reduce plastic, provide sustainable hotel options and consider the environment in planning.

Best Practices for Travel

Flights

Encourage employees to skip single-use water bottles while traveling. Be conscious of plastic in the air and the airport. Take public transit to the airport.

Hotels

We think of “travel” mostly as airline travel, but where you stay and road travel during traveling also strains the environment. If you have a hotel partnership, press them for sustainability information or strategies.

When you’re at a hotel, reuse towels and sheets and decline toiletries to keep your stay less waste and water-intensive. Ask the hotel how they practice sustainability and give preference to hotels that publicize their sustainability strategies. If they offer an offset, take it.

Ubers, Rental Cars, Public Transit

Include rental car preferences in your travel policy. Giving preference to hybrid or electric cars makes a difference when driving long distances. Use public transportation in cities where it's available. Incentivize employees to choose public transit when available.

Use the group option on ride-sharing. Walk when it’s available.

Do The Offsets

Offset whatever travel you can. Choose a reputable carbon offset program and complete monthly quarterly or annual offsets. To create and manage offsets:

Employees track and report miles traveled to a specific person.
A specific person purchases carbon offsets at predetermined intervals.
Offsets are reported as necessary. Report offsets internally, with a preference for external sharing too!

Set goals

You can set goals for carbon offsets or miles traveled or for the number of flights. Work it out in a way that works for you. Goals could look like:

2020: Track all mileage

2021: Track and Offset 10% of airline miles

2025: Track and Offset 50% of airline miles

2030: Track and Offset 100% of airline miles

If you review and find a lot of unnecessary travel, your goals could look like this:

2020: Track miles

2021: Reduce miles flown by 10%

2023: Reduce miles flown by 15%

Understanding Is King

You might go through this exercise and come to the determination that 80% of your travel is important. That is fine!!! As long as you’ve reviewed, taken the steps and have a plan of action. If you know the carbon emitted, travel requirements and you’re tracking metrics, you’ve completed a travel policy.

Share the carbon emissions of travel with employees and put it into understandable terms. There are lots of services that quantify emissions into lighting used, computer hours or other indicators.

Travel is a vital part of doing business. Unfortunately, it’s also taxing the environment. Understanding travel from an environmental standpoint adds another lens to your sustainability strategy and gives employees additional chances to make smart environmental choices.

Does your business use a travel policy? What else would you add to this blog? Share in the comments below!