Corporate Responsibility on Wheels: Sustainability in Business Transportation

In today’s business world, having the right product or service is insufficient. Consumers go beyond what you are selling and look into your company’s policies and motto before selecting your products. Among the many things they look for, sustainability is perhaps the most important. People prefer engaging with companies with sustainable policies, from reducing paper waste to having sustainable corporate transportation services.

Let’s start with how companies can undertake sustainable transportation for their employees. This is not something radically new; in 1991, Seattle’s Commute Trip Reduction program was introduced to reduce the number of single occupancy commuters. That is because such commuters use more greenhouse gas and also create traffic congestion, which in turn leads to more consumption of greenhouse gas emissions. Both companies and people supported this program, which helped reduce Seattle’s pollution and traffic congestion. It also saw a rise in good public transportation services and commuters carpooling together.

Helping your employees with their transportation methods can help you reduce your carbon footprint. You can encourage such sustainable behaviour by:

• Transit subsidies are for those coming by public transport or carpooling.
• Have dedicated areas for bikes and provide showering and towels for those who bike to the office.
• If your employees live nearby, you can have a bonus on walking or biking to the office.
• Go for chartered rental buses instead of employees driving alone when you need them to attend an event.
• Have relaxed arrival times, or have people work from home for certain days in a week.

Don’t think this kind of sustainable policy will only benefit your carbon footprint or your company’s image. Such policies can also help you financially as well. Take, for example, car parking. Many companies must provide employees with parking facilities, which they either have to build or rent from a parking facility. With fewer cars being driven to work, you will need less parking space.

Also, when your employees carpool or go to events in a charted bus as part of your corporate transportation services, they bond better and work better. You will have a better working environment and a reasonable retention rate. The generation of employees, especially the Millennials and Gen Zs, prefer working in a company that provides them with such facilities.