One of the most powerful things an organisation can do to slow climate change is to reduce their commuting emissions. On average, New Zealanders spend 150 million hours travelling to work every year and 80% of that commuting time is spent in a private vehicle. This creates a huge opportunity for us to make a positive change and consider alternative modes of transport.
As an organisation on our own sustainability journey, we felt how hard it was to measure and record employee commuting data. After looking for a solution, we realised there was no available tool to set up, run, and process commuter survey data.
We wanted to make it simpler for other organisations, so we created the first digital tool that measures carbon emissions generated by New Zealand commuters.
CarbonWise is designed by our team of experienced transportation specialists. It is made up of two parts: a short biannual employee survey which captures trip details over 7 days and a user-friendly dashboard which makes visualising results across multiple workplaces easy. CarbonWise is certified by Toitū Envirocare and enables organisations to measure and report on commuting as part of their ISO 14064 1:2018 compliant inventories.
CarbonWise clients, Assurity say it best: “The only people who can help us change our commuting impact are our team. They need to be advocates. I want our team holding the flag themselves saying, ‘Hey, this is a thing we believe in.’ Our drive to be more sustainable needs to be an inclusive collaborative thing we’re all in together.”
With CarbonWise, organisations can understand how their team currently travel to work. This information can be used to design initiatives that help employees move to more sustainable methods such as car pooling, taking the bus or cycling. At the more advanced end, these initiatives may include working with employees to create an individual travel plan or incentivising sustainable travel through rewards such as employer-subsidised bus transport. Or, it may be as simple as participating in World Car Free Day (22 September), World Sustainable Transport Day (26 November) and Aotearoa Bike Challenge (February).
Enabling employees to travel using sustainable modes isn’t just about reducing emissions, it also promotes healthier lifestyles and improves mental health.
Wherever you are on your organisation’s sustainability movement, understanding your baseline commuting emissions and tracking the impact of behaviour change is a beneficial step to take and it’s even simpler with CarbonWise.
If you’re looking for a way to measure commuting emissions for your organisation, and to encourage your staff to use more sustainable travel options we’d love to introduce you to CarbonWise.
Learn more here or book a demo with us today.
Lizzie Garside
Graduate Transportation Engineer