Tips for Reducing Your Company’s Employee Carbon Footprint

Employees play a significant role in a company’s carbon footprint, with commuting and business travel often topping the list of contributors. Today, Aclymate highlights a couple of practical steps companies can take to reduce emissions associated with employees while promoting sustainable practices and mindset shifts.

• Rethink commuting options
• Business travels: manage the carbon impact
• Encourage a sustainable mindset

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Rethink commuting options

Commuting is often the biggest contributor to emissions in the employee category. Here are some strategies to reduce related carbon impact:

• Consider work-from-home (WFH) options: Reducing the need for employees to commute is one of the most impactful ways to cut carbon emissions. Offering WFH options eliminates the need to commute, thus is the best way to cut down carbon emissions in this sector.

Did you know that a solar installation company in Colorado reported that having a portion of employees work from home directly cut their emissions by 7-8%? Even a partial WFH setup can significantly reduce your company’s carbon footprint.

• Strategic office location: For companies that need employees on-site, consider the accessibility of your office location.

One direction to think about this is to consider placing offices near public transit options. This encourages employees to choose eco-friendly commuting. This factor was a priority when we were choosing our own office location – Aclymate’s Denver office is only three blocks from the city’s central bus station!

• Encourage sustainable transit options: Incentivize employees to use eco-friendly commuting methods. Offering subsidies for bus tickets or installing bike racks can encourage a shift away from car travel, further cutting emissions and supporting a sustainable commute.

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Business travels: manage the carbon impact

Business travel is another significant source of employee-related emissions. Here are some ways to reduce its impact:

• Consider carbon budgets: Some companies allocate a set amount of carbon emissions – called carbon budget – for each employee’s business travel on top of a monetary budget. This significantly helps quantifying travel-related emissions, which is usually the first step when it comes to reducing emissions.

• Prioritize efficient travel: Think strategically about the efficiency of business travels. What is the way to reach the most amount of stakeholders with the least amount of travels? One of such ways is to research and attend relevant conferences, where multiple stakeholders are present at the same location at the same time, instead of booking individual trips. This approach not only maintains client engagement while minimizing emissions, but also aligns business objectives with environmental ones.

Another way to increase travel efficiency is by utilizing virtual meetings for routine check-ins and reserving in-person visits for key milestones or project kick-offs. This approach ensures that essential face-to-face interactions are maintained, while cutting down on less important trips. By concentrating in-person visits on high-value interactions, companies can reduce travel frequency, optimize costs, and further align business goals with environmental responsibility.

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Encourage a sustainable mindset

Reducing emissions in the employee category requires a shift in mindset to encourage sustainable choices.

• Promote a reporting and reward system: Establish a system where employees can report and share their sustainable travel ideas and commuting habits. Rewarding eco-friendly practices, rather than shaming high emissions, creates a positive culture around sustainability. Recognizing employees’ efforts can foster long-term commitment to carbon reduction and inspire further innovation in sustainability practices.

• Realize alignment in business and environment: A big part of practicing sustainability in the business scale is to think into the future. When making each decision regarding employee activity, consider what impact it will have on the climate if the practice is continued for 5 years.

Often, the option that’s best for the Earth is also the option that’s best for your business, since sustainable practices can reduce costs – like savings from offering public transit subsidies instead of expensive parking spaces; enhance employee satisfaction by offering flexible, remote work options; and boost brand reputation as consumers increasingly favor companies with strong environmental values.

Want to learn more about evaluating and offsetting your business’s carbon emissions? Book a free 30-minute consultation call with our sustainability expert now.