Rail Travel For Work: Which Companies Are Paving The Way For Sustainable Business Travel?

Flying for work is all too widespread for some staff. However on some widespread routes like London-Amsterdam, touring by rail over aircraft will scale back the worker’s carbon footprint by 93%. But, too few firms have embraced rail of their enterprise journey insurance policies, a brand new briefing by the Journey Good Marketing campaign finds.

Enterprise journey represents 15–20% of world air journey. At a time when firms are attempting to cut back their carbon footprints, reducing down on enterprise flying is a simple method to meet sustainability objectives. Rail travel is a viable and fascinating possibility, accessible to firms working in Europe and the US. But too few firms are embracing rail journey of their enterprise journey insurance policies. That is the principle discovering of a brand new briefing by the Journey Good Marketing campaign and Transport & Surroundings. Emissions discount on sure widespread enterprise routes can go as much as -97%.

Solely only a few firms are actively selling rail travel amongst staff. The Journey Good marketing campaign surveyed 322 firms to collect info on their journey coverage practices. Of the businesses which replied to the survey, 28 have established insurance policies to shift enterprise flying to rail. Notably, 294 firms both lack insurance policies or haven’t been recognized as having particular insurance policies to shift from air to rail. It is a worrying statement, given the urgency of the local weather disaster, T&E says.

Among the many respondents, the Journey Good marketing campaign recognized seven firms with formidable rail insurance policies. These are Swiss Re, Steelcase, ABN Amro, Mapfre, Publicis Group, Ante Group and Simon Kucher. Among the many insurance policies recognized have been:

• Corporations set a journey local weather funds for the corporate and per division,
• Corporations set a goal to transform a share of the air journeys to rail
• Staff should use the prepare as a substitute of plan for journeys beneath a certain quantity of hours or kilometers
• Staff are provided a much bigger funds and supply the opportunity of reserving firstclass tickets when possible, to encourage touring by rail
• Corporations grant further go away to staff in the event that they use rail or low-carbon transport for private causes
• Staff are allowed to telework on the prepare throughout private travels.

Corporations have been additionally requested to submit information on kilometers traveled by air and rail in 2019 versus 2022. 14 firms submitted information, and in all circumstances, the businesses had decreased the kilometers traveled by air. 6 of the 14 had elevated rail journey as a consequence.

The Journey Good marketing campaign encourages companies to comply with the lead of the seven firms talked about above and to set formidable rail journey insurance policies that may allow them to considerably scale back company journey emissions.

Republished from Transport & Environment.