Our team finished ClimateSmart training session last week, which is great, but not because it’s over. In three sessions we learned a lot – impacts of green house gases (GHGs), ways to reduce them inhouse as well as ways we could guide our clients interests in GHG reduction and, most recently, a thorough examamination of carbon offsets.

As part of the program, each participant creates a GHG “inventory”, a snapshot of a business’s contribution to GHGs.

Doing our Climate Smart GHG inventory showed us one of our largest emission sources is employee’s commuting to work. We all live relatively close to the office; however, because of family and life commitments many of us feel we need our vehicles daily.

In our last session, we did an exercise on ways we can get our company on board for reducing carbon outputs. An example was shared of an organization that provided an emergency vehicle for employee’s to use if they had to leave work suddenly and, at the same time, they were encouraged to use public transit, cycle and walk to work rather than take their own vehicle. This way, they would have the comfort of knowing instant transportation was there, in case of emergency.

While our company isn’t able to provide an emergency vehicle for employee’s to use this sparked an idea. We’re investigating a plan where one person drives each week and the other team members take public transit, walk or ride their bikes to work. The person who is on driving duty that week or day would agree to let their vehicle become the “emergency vehicle” for the day.

By knowing they have access to a vehicle in case anything comes up with children or personal life, our team will use more sustainable modes of transportation to get to work.

How does your workplace encourage employees to use sustainable modes of transportation?