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Guide to writing a sustainable travel policy

Having a well thought out travel emissions policy for your organisation is an essential part of tackling your emissions and taking action against the impacts of climate change.

In this guide we give an overview of what to consider when writing a travel policy for your organisation. We’ve put together some advice, tips and examples for successfully creating and implementing your travel emissions policy. There are many approaches to writing a sustainable travel policy so we reviewed a number of existing travel policies from organisations such as Energy Saving Trust and WWF, as well as our own.

This guide contains the following:

Why does a travel emissions policy matter?

Transport is the largest emitting sector in the UK, producing 24% of the UK’s total emissions in 2020. For the cultural sector in Scotland in 2021-22, travel accounted for 245.9 tonnes of CO2e for the 133 organisations that report their emissions through Creative Carbon Scotland. The arts and culture industry rely on travel to work, from audience travel to touring to commuting, so it’s important that we understand our impact and create policies that support the industry to travel as sustainably as possible. Arts and culture also have an important role in shaping and influencing the behaviour of audiences and society, which can include their actions towards sustainable travel.

What makes a good policy?

A policy is a deliberate system of guidelines to guide decisions and achieve rational outcomes. It’s a statement of intent implemented through procedures or protocol. A policy can communicate your organisation’s values, principles and culture. Key elements of a good travel emissions policy are:

  • Clear, simple and effective, crafted on an understanding of your organisation’s emissions. Start with learning about the most significant sources of travel emissions within your organisation and thinking through how you can reduce these. We have some examples of policies at the end of the guide.
  • Buy-in from all areas of your organisation, with effective communication to staff and audiences. Policy can only be effective if everybody knows about it and understands what it means for their activities. It can help to involve those who’ll be involved in implementing the policy in its development to increase their sense of ownership.
  • Adaptable to meet new ideas and technologies as we move towards a climate resilient future. At the time of writing, we know that electric vehicles represent a lower carbon way of travelling than those powered by fossil fuels and that land based travel is a lower carbon option for most journeys than flying. However, over the coming years we can expect a wealth of new technologies and solutions to become available, which could change our travel options. Therefore, it is important to keep staff trained and supported to stay informed about climate news and policy in Scotland and around the world and to have review mechanisms in place for policy to change with the options available.
  • Awareness of justice impacts. There is a risk that climate policies can exacerbate social justice issues, so all decisions need to be viewed through a climate justice lens. The term ‘climate justice’ expresses how climate change is a social and political issue as much as a technical or environmental one.

Organisations can and should be part of the movement towards a climate just world, so keep learning and getting involved, making the most of the platform your organisation has. Demand better public transport for communities from government and recognise the work that is being done by activists and community groups on the issue of travel. If you have a venue, offer it to these groups to meet and engage the public in your policies. Accessible, affordable and sustainable infrastructure in your community benefits your organisation and your audiences.

Policy for staff and artist travel

Organisational travel such as artist and exhibitor travel and staff commuting is often a necessary part of an organisation. It is important to measure this and implement policies that enable staff to make better decisions. One way you could start is by recording your staff travel during the financial year. You could use tools such as claim expenses to evaluate. For staff commuting, you could undertake a travel survey amongst staff to provide insight into travel patterns.

Organisational travel for work policy

When travelling across Scotland and the UK as an organisation, replace internal flights with rail, bus and ferry travel.

Plan ahead of time to get the best deals on public transport. Set up accounts and alerts with train companies to get deals on tickets and to make it easier to process within your organisation. Keep a record of which staff members have railcards and encourage staff to get one if they are able to.

Where possible, consider not traveling at all. Throughout the pandemic, we adapted to working from home. We now have efficient set ups for video meetings and although it can be nice to meet in person, be more conscious of how often you do this for short meetings.

Build partnerships and hire local freelancers in touring destinations so less people are made to travel. This can strengthen relationships with the communities you are visiting too.

When travelling internationally as an organisation, replace flights across Europe with train travel.

Replace flights across Europe with train travel. Not only is train travel the sustainable option, it is often comfier and the longer travel time can be utilised for working. To budget and plan, use websites such as Seat61 to explore travel routes, take note of who has railcards in your organisation and split your journey to make it cheaper. Consider the journey itself when planning tours and exhibitions and route your tours to allow you to travel less frequently but more sustainably.

Set a travel carbon budget using our carbon budgeting tool. This allows you to reduce your travel emissions on a year by year basis and budget carbon on a project by project basis.

When working with artists, promoters, agents and external organisations present two budgets, a sustainable option and a less sustainable one.

Presenting the hirer with two budgets – one for sustainable travel (which may be more expensive) and one for a less sustainable (but cheaper) travel option – will begin a conversation at a different level of the sector and may result in the hirer agreeing to cover higher costs for more sustainable travel.

This will vary depending on your organisation and who is in front of you. Your organisation may want to only present the sustainable option, and only if there is resistance also present the less sustainable one.

Commuting policy

Offer a ‘cycle to work’ scheme to all staff.

Incentivise staff to use active and sustainable travel to get to their place of work and encourage staff to travel by bike where possible. Implement a Cycle to Work scheme for your employers. The cycle to work scheme allows employers to spread the payment of a bike and pay no tax on the payment by having this deducted through their payslip.

Build cycling infrastructure in and around your building such as secure and sheltered cycle parking for bikes, locker facilities for helmets and clothing and showering facilities for commuters. Apply for active travel funding opportunities through organisations such as Cycling Scotland, Sustrans and Paths for All.

Have a flexible working policy for staff.

Allow staff to avoid peak times and rush hour on public transport, encouraging them to travel by public transport.

Make sure staff have adequate set ups for working from home. Provide IT equipment so they can work efficiently from home. Regularly check in and ask them if they have everything they need.

Consider schemes such as Climate Perks, offering employees paid ‘journey days’ to staff who travel sustainably.

Policy for suppliers and deliveries

Always strive to use local suppliers and deliver in the most sustainable way possible.

Use bicycle couriers for deliveries in your city or town and use couriers that use electric or low emission vehicles for longer delivery journeys.

Collaborate with other organisations for production deliveries, set up groups to organise and collectively reduce delivery emissions.

Share materials for productions and events where possible.

Policy for audience travel

Although audience travel doesn’t sit within an organisation’s direct control when it comes to emissions – it is usually the largest travel emission source for an organisation and there are ways you can influence your audiences to make more sustainable choices.

Firstly, it is useful to try to measure your audience travel and gather some data to give you a rough estimate of how your audiences travel to your venues. Although this can be challenging and will never be 100% accurate, there are multiple ways of doing it.

  • Send out a survey gathering feedback on the event, accessibility, as well as travel to get there.
  • Brief event staff and volunteers to ask people as they leave the venue.
  • Gather data from ticket buyer’s postcode and estimate using that.

You could even incentivise it by giving a discount to your next event if people answered your survey questions. The questions you need are: how the audience member travelled, how far they travelled and the number of people who travelled that way.

Once you have the information and have calculated your audience travel footprint as best you can, you can create policy that will make the biggest difference.

Practical steps to audience travel

Plan all events, exhibitions and shows to begin and end at times that allow the use of public transport.

Plan the logistics of your event to coincide with sustainable travel options, for example starting and ending your shows and events so that people can get public transport home. Choose locations that are near public transport, and where this isn’t possible offer shuttle buses to the nearest train or bus station, so people have the option.

Where possible, choose locations with electric vehicle charging points. Where the building is your own, look for funding to introduce this yourself through organisations such as Energy Saving Trust.

Build partnerships and work with local authorities, rail and bus companies to offer discounts and incentivise audience members to choose to travel sustainably.

Include outreach work with the local community when planning the logistics of the event.

Do outreach work with the local community, build connections and opportunities with local cycling or walking groups to lead people to the event or organisation or partner with cafes and businesses to offer discounts for those who travel sustainably. Engage with schools and communities to attend your event so the audience is local as well as coming from further afield.

The website and promotional material should include copy about active and sustainable travel options.

Always encourage audiences to travel by walking or cycling, public transport or car sharing through promotional material. Link to websites such as Liftshare and Bla Bla Car if audiences do choose to travel by car.

Build cycling infrastructure in venues or choose venues with safe and secure bike parking spaces. Have cycle routes displayed on your website, along with train times and routes to the nearest train station.

Communicating your policy

Framing and communicating your travel policies to staff, artists and audiences is an important part of the story. It’s important to focus on building collective momentum and seeing sustainable travel as a powerful choice that people participate in.

  • Visualise the impact through data, show the collective impact to your audience on websites and demonstrate they are part of a movement.
  • Amplify the human stories that make up sustainable travel and show case studies of examples of people traveling to your event, organisation and shows.

Examples of best practice

Glasgow Women’s Library Environmental Policy (opens a PDF)

WWF Sustainable Travel Policy (opens a PDF)