The Department for Transport has commissioned JMP Consultants Ltd to deliver a £70,000 grant which will assist public sector organisations in maximising the take-up of measures that will help employees reduce their work-related trips. The grant will help organisations maximise remote working, flexi working and tele/video/webconferencing in order to reduce travel. JMP are working with Bristol City Council, Cheshire West and Chester Council, Dorset County Council, Kent County Council and Swindon Borough Council. JMP has developed an assessment tool which captures work-related trips (commuter and business-related travel data). All of the participating councils have completed the assessment in order to baseline their work-related trips and to demonstrate a business case for promoting alternatives to travel measures. Measures being implemented include; webinar training, a one month ‘Alternatives To Travel’ challenge, ‘How To’ guides on teleconferencing and advice to managers to help them manage staff in remote locations. The impact of these measures on travel will be monitored by repeating the use of the assessment tool early in 2012.
Business Travel Projects
JMP prepared a business travel strategy to help the council achieve financial efficiency savings, reduce carbon emissions, meet duty of care requirements and improve compliance to travel policies and procedures. Our strategy report includes practical recommendations that the council can implement to support their ongoing process to harmonise travel policies and employee terms and conditions.
JMP produced guidance to support organisations wishing to calculate and reduce emissions associated with work-related travel. The guidance provides employers with a clear set of instructions on how to source the right data from the right places in order to make objective decisions. It is complemented by the calculation and reporting tool, which supports the process of measuring and monitoring carbon emissions generated by work-related travel.
The report and associated carbon calculation / reporting tool can be viewed at http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/sustainable/greenhousegasemissions/.
JMP reviewed Government travel through the STEPS programme. Our work gave a high level summary of the Government travel landscape with recommendations on: (a) how Government could build the structures and capacity to deliver sustainable travel in its own operations; (b) where further research is necessary to create the evidence; and (c) the ‘first steps’ and ‘quick wins’ that could be taken to catalyse action.
.jpg){kind=spacer}
JMP prepared a landmark carbon-focused travel plan for Transport Scotland (the national transport agency for Scotland). The travel plan covered both commuter and business travel, and included a detailed travel carbon footprinting exercise to quantify greenhouse gas emissions from travel by Transport Scotland employees. The Travel Plan aimed to achieve a 35,000 kgCO2 saving over the first two years.
Innovative measures included: a Business Unit Monthly Carbon 'Account' – to track carbon (and cost) expenditure within business units; in-house video-conference training; compressed/flexible working opportunities and/or relocation packages for longer distance commuters; and a 'hierarchy' of business travel modes with video-conference the preferred option.
JMP designed WWF-UK’s One in Five Challenge. The Challenge, which was launched in July 2009, helps companies and Government agencies to reduce the environmental impact of their business travel and gives public recognition for their achievements. We designed an end-to-end management and reporting programme for the Challenge and are retained by WWF-UK as Project Managers for its implementation. We advised participants on the capture of business travel information, the measurement of environmental impacts and opportunities to challenge travel behaviour. On behalf of WWF-UK we acted as independent auditors, providing feedback and recommendations to WWF-UK on a participant’s progress and wider programme development.
"The audit process proved to be a very valuable sense check for BT. It helped us understand what we were doing well and where we could improve. It resulted in us setting up more rigorous data collection processes which has helped in improving confidence in our data and ability to monitor emissions reductions from business travel." Gabrielle Giner, Sustainability and Climate Change, BT
