10 ways to reduce your business travel costs | Low Carbon Futures

Business travel forms a fairly substantial expense for most companies, not to mention a significant part of their carbon footprint too. The aim of a travel plan is to challenge ?business as usual? travel arrangements to achieve cost and carbon savings.

Encouraging employees to give up their cars is a notoriously hard sell, especially in rural locations where we utterly depend on them. When bringing together a company travel plan, it?s important to speak to as many employees as possible to understand when, why and how they travel for business. The buy-in of employees is the single most important factor in whether your travel plan will result in the reductions you want.

Below are some ideas to help you change the way your business travels:

(we also have an infographic on the subject)

• Start measuring. Most business miles are recorded for expenses anyway, but start compiling them and calculating an average cost and CO2 emission figure per employee per month. Once you?ve done this you can see where the big expenses and carbon emissions are coming from. Share this information with staff so they understand why you?re doing what you?re doing, and what the potential savings could be.

• Introduce flexitime. Speak to your staff and find out if having one or two hours flexitime in the morning and evening would encourage them to take public transport.

• Invest in technology and training. Video-conferencing, tele-conferencing, skype and webinars are all ways to reduce staff travel. The introduction of superfast broadband in some areas will also facilitate this.

• Get an electric car. A shared electric company car could be a good solution for staff who have to do lots of local travelling, and would save on expenses claims too.

• Offer taxis. This might seem counter-intuitive, but offering taxis to cover a short trip to the train station can often make a considerable saving on someone doing a whole business trip in the car just because they couldn?t get to the train station.

• Take staff on a driving awareness course to encourage eco-driving. This can result in significant savings for companies with a fleet of cars, vans, trucks or lorries.

• Incentivise. Paying a little extra for passengers and car sharing, you can save on a whole other expense claim. Paying cycle mileage can have the same effect.

• Involve your staff. It?s imperative that you involve staff in the decisions made, ask them about how they would like things to work and present your findings back to them. They will be the people making changes, so it?s always best to ensure that they know how changes will benefit them.

View the infographic

Source: http://www.lowcarbonfutures.com/07/10-ways-to-reduce-your-business-travel-costs/

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