A pair of interesting articles in the Guardian under the title ‘Plane Wrong‘ looked at ways companies are cutting their business travel AND how they are signing up to a new schemed called Climate Perks, developed by the charity Possible, which rewards employees with two or more extra days off each year, if they go on their personal holidays without using planes.
We’re thinking a lot about our business travel (our eco survey late in 2019 proved interesting reading; more on this in future posts), but the Climate Perks scheme was an immediate no-brainer. We’ve signed up and any employee who doesn’t fly all year for personal travel will receive three extra days off the next year.
The scheme’s genius is that companies can choose to help make low-carbon personal travel more attractive, since employees are often keen on lower carbon travel options for holidays, but struggle with the squeeze on their holiday time, as the low-carbon journeys often take longer (eg two days’ travel from the UK to the South of Spain by train).
Despite only 5% of the world’s population ever having stepped inside a plane, flying is the fastest growing contributor to climate change globally. On current trends, aviation alone will account for 25% of UK carbon emissions by 2050, but people in other countries (Sweden!) have already shown change in habits is possible. We recognise the need for behaviour change to play a role in reducing aviation emissions and in turn the role of society, including companies, to help make change happen.
We also recognise that the challenge of decarbonising the global economy must have equity considerations at its core. Citizens in global north countries must be empowered to reduce their lifestyle greenhouse gas emissions, in order to assist developing countries in providing their citizens with a higher standard of living within finite global carbon budgets.
Climate Perks is one easy way to start that journey. Thank you, Possible!
February Tip: Sites to Help you Plan No-fly Travel
In our first Eco Post we mentioned Seat61.com. But some people wanted a bit more help. There are lots of resources online for planning a journey by land or sea within Europe and beyond. Here are a few more. If you have other favourites, let us know and we’ll add them!
- Seat61.com – comprehensive rail travel guide, primarily focused on Europe but with advice on destinations further afield as well.
- loco2.co.uk – easy pan-European rail ticketing website.
- Rome2Rio.com enables comparison and booking of different travel options.
- snowcarbon.co.uk specialises in train travel to ski resorts.