IT'S not so much sitting in your office which wrecks your green credentials as moving to and from it. Much of the business travel we undertake is frighteningly damaging to the environment.
You only have to look at the queues which build up at peak hour on Glasgow's Kingston Bridge or at Edinburgh's Gogar roundabout to see the sheer wastefulness and inefficiency of trying to move around by car.
Encouraging people to work from home w
herever possible – perhaps for a couple of days a week – is one way of cutting down on the environmental waste of the daily commute. These days, technology makes this option easy, though staff should be given the choice about whether they want to do so, as some people find it very difficult to be self-supervising and prefer the structures of the traditional office environment.
It makes sense to instruct staff to travel by train whenever possible – and if they are travelling between major city centres, there is no excuse for them not to do so. Train journeys are now frequent – every 15 minutes, for instance, between Edinburgh and Glasgow – and efficient. They also offer value for money and allow staff to work while travelling. Granted, most journeys in Scotland still rely on diesel trains, but even that's a lot greener than pumping out from a car exhaust.
What, though, if you're travelling to places where a train journey would simply be impractical? Many firms, of course, retain a fleet of company cars, both as an executive perk and to allow key staff to move from point to point efficiently. But there may well be other ways of organising car travel that are both cheaper and kinder to the environment.
One option is to use a car club. Edinburgh, London, Bath and Bristol are among the cities which have these. The way they work is relatively simple: a number of cars are parked in spaces on the road near to your premises. You book one in advance for a predetermined period, use a swipe card to unlock it and drive it away, and return it on time. Bookings can be extended if necessary – the advantage is that you only pay for the time you use. Normally fuel and a certain number of miles are included, so costs are completely transparent. This is clearly a greener option than buying or leasing vehicles which may stand idle in the company car park for much of the day.
In London, much has been made of fully electric cars such as the G Wiz, a tiny Indian-built vehicle which claims to be both green and highly efficient. It is not really practical outside the capital at present, though, as other cities lack the "juice points" needed to recharge these vehicles regularly. Servicing outside London is also very expensive.
Finally, given that aircraft are constantly becoming greener, transport managers should not dismiss air travel as an option. Scott Grier (pictured), chairman of Scotland's domestic airline, Loganair comments: "The aviation industry has come in for a lot of unfair criticism in recent years for being environmentally unfriendly, but it contributes just 2 per cent of all emissions.
"Loganair is a small player and we are operating smaller turboprop aircraft than most airlines. These planes not only have lower emissions than jet aircraft but because they fly at lower altitudes, they are far less damaging to the environment.
"A few years ago, Highlands and Islands Enterprise commissioned research into the environmental damage caused by different forms of transport in the region. This research found that aviation in the Highlands and Islands, where Loganair mainly operates, is less damaging than the nearest forms of alternative travel which are cars and buses."
