The Knowledge > Corporate case study
How to... GREEN YOUR CAR HIRE PROGRAMME
Head of facilities at Taylor Wessing, Tim Grant has singlemindedly pursued a strategy to 'green' all his travel suppliers. Gillian Upton discovers how he tackled the company's gas-guzzling, carbon-emitting taxi demands
Tim Grant HEAD OF FACILITIES, TAYLOR WESSING Tim has been head of facilities at law firm Taylor Wessing since late 2005, with his most notable achievement to date being part of the team that completed the firm’s £15million move to its impressive new base in London's New Street Square. Prior to that he worked as facilities manager at another law firm, Lewis Silkin, and as national account executive for Sodexho. He began his career in the hotel industry working in hotel groups in the South of England.
BEING environmentally friendly is becoming the norm rather than the exclusion in travel programmes today. Companies are increasingly searching and contracting green suppliers rather than take the now unfashionable route of offsetting the carbon emissions its employees have been responsible for. In the car hire and taxi spend areas corporates do now have some choice. When international law firm Taylor Wessing wanted to add another green car hire provider to the roster of companies with a green footprint, they turned to Climate Cars, a new London-based start-up company they had acted for. Thus the fledgling supplier joined two other car providers on the company’s travel programme.
Taylor Wessing has already ‘greened’ its entire supply chain as much as is reasonably possible, from caterers using locally-grown food- stuffs – and hence reducing their 'food miles' – to stationary suppliers sourcing sustainable paper. Before any supplier can get on any
Taylor Wessing tender list, however, they must comply with the ISO 14001 accreditation on environment management systems. In the travel sector, the company’s London-based head of facilities, Tim Grant, encourages as much use of audio and videoconferencing facilities as possible, but, as he explains, “We don’t control our staffing as the firm’s travel is dictated by our clients.” However, in the same breath he
adds: “Our main goal, our key goal of all, is to stop using cars altogether and use public transport wherever possible.” In tandem with this is a policy that encourages train travel over flights. Taylor Wessing
staff are expected to use the London underground rather than taxis to travel to Heathrow Airport, for example, but Grant is aware that it’s a big ask. “They’re not used
to thinking that way,” says Grant. Read on to see how this law firm has greened its ground transport policy and contained costs as
much as possible. Step 1 Climate Cars almost fell
in Taylor Wessing’s lap as a new ground transportation provider but nonetheless had to pass muster. The young company has a fleet comprised exclusively of 75-plus Toyota Prius cars, which emit 60 per
cent less carbon dioxide than black cabs and which can run on pure electricity up to 30mph.* It bought in customised IT software, Catalina, to provide an online booking system which can incorporate travel policy, generate full management information by any number of matrix and customer profiling with all contact details and so on. Climate Cars now has 600 account holders, many in the financial services sector that are based in the City of London and the West End where Climate Cars focuses its operation. “Taylor Wessing was our first proper corporate client and have been using us since day one,“ explains Nicko Williamson, the founder of Climate Cars. “They’ve now become one of our biggest clients.” Williamson makes a point of prioritising key customers; its largest customer accounts for 15 per cent of turnover.
Step 2 Taylor Wessing comprises some 350 lawyers, some of whom work until the wee small hours when public transport has all but vanished. Cars are booked through the reception desk, at least within normal working hours. There is no pre-trip approval requirement at the company but staff do need a cost centre for expenses to be approved. “We treat our partners as adults and
they make the call as to whether they actually need to book a taxi or not,” explains Grant. Climate Cars provides MI to Taylor Wessing by carbon emissions, mileage and the average cost of the journeys taken.
Step 3 The firm uses Climate Cars each day and is charged on a mileage basis. There are discounts off the mileage charge based on volumes. It cherry picks the lowest cost across
all its suppliers for specific journeys from a curious spreadsheet showing postcode analysis by cost. The three suppliers are there to cover peak periods and very often the cost
BIGSTOCKPHOTO.COM
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92