The Knowledge > Corporate case study
How to... QUANTIFY GOING GREEN
The carbon agenda should now move on to the people and financial benefits derived from going green, says government advisor Natural England. Gillian Upton has the lowdown on this fresh approach
Paul Hinds HEAD OF SUSTAINABILITY, NATURAL ENGLAND Paul is one of the UK’s leading carbon reduction practitioners specialising in employee-led behavioural change and leadership for sustainable ways of working. As head of sustainability for Natural England, he has helped the organisation meet its 50 per cent carbon reduction target and develop a programme to reduce its wider environmental impacts. He has worked for a number of public and voluntary sector organi- sations, from which he has built a wide portfolio of successful stakeholder partnerships delivering both significant environmental benefits and reduced costs.
BEING a good green citizen, Natural England, the government’s advisor on the natural environment, had set itself a goal in 2006 to cut its operational carbon emissions by 50 per cent, including reducing business travel by 25 per cent in under four years. Fast forward to 2012 and it has
done just that, reflected in a travel spend that had shrunk from £4million to £2.5million by 2010 and likely to close 2011 at nearer £2million. Moreover, the 2,500 employees had learned to leave their car behind and avoid airports for any UK meetings and instead use public transport and the likes of teleconferencing, videoconferencing, as well as working more from home. “It was a real mix in cultures when
I came on board in 2007. Some people would only travel by train for business purposes while others would insist on using their own cars. What we lacked was a clear set of expectations about how and when our people travelled and the tools to
make it sustainable,” explains Paul Hinds, head of sustainability. Hinds was brought in to lead a
small team to drive the carbon agenda, setting out the how, where and when to achieve the target. “It was seen as an ambitious target
and I was the new kid on the block tasked to put meat on the bones of it,” he says. Natural England’s journey didn’t
stop there. Once the company was managing its carbon efficiently, and driven by the government’s austerity measures, it wanted to prove that reducing the carbon footprint of business travel can also lead to financial gains for the benefit of their front line services. “Our story is as much about the people and the money benefits we have brought to our organisation and the way we engaged with our employees,” says Hinds. Read on to discover how he helped Natural England achieve both of these ambitious targets.
Step 1 Hind produced a draft green travel policy which provided travellers with a range of options. They could, for example, select a policy of borrowing pool bikes to cycle to the rail station (something that has been universally accepted); or reject a policy that limited the number of car miles driven each day. Hinds established communication channels to allow travellers to voice their approval or concerns over the changes. “The purpose was to get people talking about what types of travel were critical to achieving our business objectives. Then we could get into solution mode,” he says. Common to many organisations,
there was resistance to using rail, with the preconceptions around having to queue for hours and not being able to get a seat. Installing ticket printers in its main office, backed up by an online booking system, eased the mechanics of switching to this travel mode. The final policy was a three-prong
6 I THE BUSINESS TRAVEL MAGAZINE
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