Reed Group
To coincide with this push on conference calls, a
Reed Group is one of the UK's largest recruitment
meeting cost calculator was also introduced: every
specialists, placing people into temporary and
inter-offi ce face-to-face meeting has a value attached to
permanent opportunities across a number of it which not only accounts for the cost of travelling but
disciplines and offering training and HR
the cost of time to travel to and from the meeting. If
consultancy services. Through Reed in Partnership,
this cost goes above a threshold, it needs to be signed
the company delivers many of the UK government's
off by a senior manager. At the end of every meeting all
Welfare to Work programmes. Outside the UK,
attendees must agree that the meeting could not have
been done on a call.
Reed has offi ces in Ireland, Australia, Bulgaria,
Czech Republic, Hong Kong, Hungary, Malta,
To bring these two travel initiatives in Reed’s
Poland, Qatar and Singapore. The Reed Group
CarbonNeutral® programme to life and visibly ‘lead by
became CarbonNeutral® in 2005. example’, the company held its quarterly update meeting
on a conference call in December 2008. Organised by
the Chairman and CEO, the conference call was attended
by 140 of the most senior managers and proved to be a
What Reed Group did
success; the average score in the post-event evaluation
was nine out ten and now only one quarterly meeting a
In the beginning
year is held face-to-face. This was a signifi cant cultural
and operational shift which provided a clear signal to
In 2004, Reed’s CEO realised that the group needed to
Co-Members that senior management was serious about
mitigate its environmental impact and the decision was
the company’s CarbonNeutral® position.
made to become CarbonNeutral®. From the beginning a
key strategy in Reed’s CarbonNeutral® programme was
At the same time, Reed reviewed car mileage
to engage internal ‘Co-Members’ (Reed employees) to
allowances and found that its rates were too high. This
change behaviour and drive down emissions and cost.
was encouraging Co-Members to choose their car over
less carbon intensive forms transport. Allowances were
In 2007, the company Chairman, James Reed,
reduced by a third and in turn the mileage dropped by
attended The Prince of Wales’ May Day Summit – the UK’s
48%.
largest annual event for businesses committed to action
on climate change - where he was inspired to strengthen
The fi nal travel initiative in Reed’s CarbonNeutral®
the company’s carbon reduction position. Consequently,
programme was the introduction of an online train
the fi rst full time environmental offi cer was employed to
booking portal giving Co-Members access to a
spearhead Reed’s CarbonNeutral® programme and May
straight-forward booking platform which incentivises
Day commitment.
registrations with vouchers. It has resulted in a third of
Reed’s Co-Members signing up for, and regularly using,
The inside story - lead by example the service.
The theme that runs throughout Reed’s CarbonNeutral®
programme is ‘lead by example’: all initiatives have the
Chairman’s support and are exemplifi ed by senior
management.
“Reed has been an environmental
Like many service-based companies, business travel
champion for a long time and our
presented the biggest opportunity to reduce emissions, focus is, and always will be, to reduce our
contributing 87% to Reed’s overall carbon footprint in
environmental impact as much as possible and
2007. Replacing travel with conference calls seemed
then effi ciently manage what is unavoidable.
like the obvious answer, but the company already had
As such, carbon offsetting plays an important
this facility in place and take up had been slow. To drive
role - it offers an immediate solution while
usage, Reed pre-registered 600 Co-Members for the
service, from the board down to senior management
we improve relevant business processes.”
and business managers. Removing this joining step,
offering training and setting up a personalised intranet James Reed, Chairman
page, encouraged acceptance across the group and
within two months conferencing use had doubled to
130,000 minutes per month; a level which has been
sustained ever since.
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