How to Encourage Employees to Reduce Transportation Emissions

As your employees trickle into the office one by one, have you ever wondered how much emissions are produced to get them to the office and back? Maybe you hear them complaining about traffic congestion, fuel costs, or the environmental toll of driving to work. A study performed by Net Impact discovered that employees today care significantly for the world around them and prefer jobs where they can have a positive social or environmental impact. By utilizing the methods described here, you can encourage your employees to reduce transportation emissions to benefit them, your company, and the planet.

Why It’s Important to Reduce Transportation:

According to the EPA, a typical passenger vehicle emits about 4.6 metric tons of carbon dioxide annually. With the average person driving over 2,000 miles to and from work, according to the 2009 National Household Travel Survey, this creates a significant impact on the environment. How much? The Center for Climate and Energy solution reports that 27% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions are from transportation sources, including emissions generated by employees traveling for office-related business and commuting for work.

A vast improvement can be made through dedicated companies that take action to reduce their employees’ transportation emissions. Here are a few ideas on how your company can encourage employees to reduce their transportation emissions.

How to Encourage Employees to Reduce Transportation Emissions

1. Create a Green Team

The availability of easy-to-implement, accurate, and sustainable methods of transportation options is key to getting employees interested and taking action. Therefore, companies who have the means should build a Green Team.

A Green Team can consist of a dedicated employee(s) hired solely to perform this task, regular employees given dedicated work hours to focus on this mission, or volunteers willing to go the extra mile.

The purpose of a Green Team is to build, implement, and share methods to reduce environmental impacts, improve sustainability, communicate programs, and coordinate company education or services. They can also be used for the following ideas.

2. Provide Public Transportation Information

Unfortunately, the average person needs more time and passion for performing sustainability research independently. They are busy with their projects at work or their personal responsibilities when off the clock. After building a Green Team, you can provide your employees with public transportation information.

Locations vary significantly on their transportation opportunities. Most urban areas have widespread public transportation means such as buses, light rail, trains, or subways. If accepted by an employee, your Green Team can use their home location to map out a variety of transportation methods for them to utilize that they may have been unaware of before. Simple education and local knowledge may be employees’ primary hurdle to making the switch to a greener alternative.

For cities or towns where public transportation is not viable, a Green Team may need to develop a clever solution. An easy option would be to encourage employees to carpool, but you can also design a work-run bus service.

3. Offer Work-Run Bus Services to Transportation Hubs

If your company is willing to make a vehicle-sized investment into reducing emissions, there is the option of a work-run bus service. This can be utilized in a variety of ways.

Firstly, say that your city does have viable public transportation for most of your employees, but the stop where they need to hop on and off is quite a hike from the company. The work-run bus service would transport the employees from the main building to the nearest transportation hub.

Secondly, if the work-run bus service can extend further, it could pick up employees at meet-up spots around the city. For example, there is a van service that is utilized by Boeing employees that live on Whidbey Island. They meet up at various spots on the island, get picked up by the van carpool, and are transported across the ferry and to Boeing headquarters. Then it is reversed at the end of the day. This system provides a dozen employees faster, reliable, and affordable transportation on and off the island; far easier and cheaper than attempting to drive themselves each day!

If the investment funds aren’t available or employees are too spread out for this is efficiently work, carpooling is likely the next best option.

4. Encourage Carpooling Between Employees

If each employee added one more person to their car, the U.S. could save 33 million gallons of gas a day! Now imagine if you could get two or three! On top of that, carpooling helps to reduce road congestion as well as wear and tear on both the car and the city, saving time and money for everyone involved.

We recommend setting up rideshare programs in the company for those who must drive to and from work. Whether it is a sign-up sheet in the breakroom, a coordinated affair hosted by the Green Team, or a simple buddy system worked out at an employee meeting every month; carpooling can go a long way! In this age of technology, many companies are utilizing social media pages, group texting, and even apps to design and schedule carpooling.

5. Hire Group Transport for Business Events

If your business participates in off-site events, an easy way to reduce transportation emissions is to hire a local transportation service. For example, if you are located in Los Angeles, and your company is attending a conference in San Diego, you can transport your employees all together to save everyone time, money, and emissions.

By hiring a car service Los Angeles company, you can schedule the appropriate vehicle size and type for your transportation needs, whether it is a small sprinter van or a large charter bus. This is by far a better option than having each employee transport themselves! Plus, group transportation like this aids in the logistics of company travel. Employees will arrive to their destination together, on-time, and well-rested to take on whatever the challenge of the day may be.

6. Subsidize Employee’s Commute

The Qualified Transportation Fringe Benefit program is a strategy developed to help employers shift employees away from single car use to public transportation. The program benefits include mass transit, van pools, qualified parking, and some other commuter benefits as a tax-free benefit, including biking! While the details may deter an average employee, your Green Team can set it all up for them to take advantage of.

7. Provide Company Bought Alternatives

Beyond the scope of tax benefits, a company can choose to simply buy bicycles for their employees. We know that may seem a bit out there, but it is an option, especially for smaller teams where employees live close enough to bike to work. We suggest buying bicycles, slapping your company logo on them, and loaning them out to employees to commute to and from work. Of course, your employees should be responsible for the bikes when they are out of the office, but the company should handle repairs, maintenance, and replacements.

However, before diving into this idea, we advise that your Green Team investigate whether this is a viable option for your company, complete a survey among employees to see who would actually participate, set a policy in place that covers the legalities, and offer an incentive program for those who sign up!

8. Offer Incentive Programs

To get the greatest action, rewards are the best way to attract a crowd. With millions of workers benefiting from company-offered programs, we recommend offering an incentive program to employees who actively participate in alternative transportation. There is a vast array of methods a company can use in creating its incentivization program, which will significantly be determined by its size, location, and resources. Just a few ideas include a gift card rewarded carpool group, a dedicated space for parking bicycles, year-end bonuses based on recorded alternative transportation days, etc. This is another excellent way to utilize a Green Team!

9. Offer a Work-From-Home Day

The absolute best way to forgo emissions is to skip out on transportation altogether. How so? By working from home! If your employees do not need to physically be in the office every day of the week, it may be possible to offer work-from-home days.

With McKinsey’s 2022 American Opportunity Survey reporting that 58 percent of U.S. employees work from home at least one day a week and 35 percent work from home five days a week, it is an opportunity many companies are choosing to take advantage of. Of course, a work-from-home program would be quite the change to set up. Policies will have to be put in place, equipment and software will need to be distributed, accountability services standardized, and much more.

While it may seem daunting, the benefits not only include reduced emissions but higher employee retention, greater employee morale, a culture of trust, and reduced overhead costs for when employees are not in the office.

Start Making an Impact Today

Every step towards a greener environment makes an impact. Through the creation of these programs, your company can effect positive change in the environment while increasing employee satisfaction and retention.

This article does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors or management of EconoTimes.