Transport and technology company Abley has developed the first digital tool to help reduce carbon emissions generated by New Zealand commuters.
Abley CarbonWise was launched on 10 March 2022, and is designed to help local companies measure carbon emissions generated by their commuting staff.
“Lots of businesses have put measuring the impact of their employees’ commuter travel in the too hard basket, and are simply not reporting these emissions,” says Benjamin Walch, Sustainability Specialist at Abley. “We realised this was because there was no available tool to set up, run, and process commuter survey data.
“So, we came up with CarbonWise, an easy way to measure emissions generated by the daily commute, using a simple survey of employees’ travel choices. Survey participants get instant feedback on what their carbon emissions are, and employers can monitor data as it is collected to compare results against sustainability targets.
“Once you have that data you can come up with personal or workplace strategies to reduce the commuter carbon footprint.”
Walch says that during trials of CarbonWise, employees said they were shocked at their commuting emissions and asked what they could do about it. “That’s exactly the type of conversations we want to spark.”
CarbonWise is ideal for large organisations with teams in multiple locations, Walch says, as it automates the survey and data analysis process, enabling comparison of travel patterns and emissions at different sites. It is also a valuable tool for informing investment decisions such as installing electric vehicle charging stations.
“CarbonWise means companies can now easily include their staff’s commuter emissions in their carbon inventories. The tool is also a great way to challenge and reward staff for reducing their own contribution to global emissions.”
CarbonWise will soon be able to calculate emissions from Australian workplaces, and Abley plans to add more countries, making CarbonWise an international tool to help businesses throughout the world to reduce emissions.Abley
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