Scottish government saves 25% on business travel thanks to video conferencing
The Scottish government has committed to reducing a fifth of business flights within the next five years, reports Public Sector Travel.
They have signed up to WWF-UK’s One in Five Challenge, which helps companies and public sector bodies reduce their carbon emissions and costs generated by business travel. It asks them to pledge to reduce business travel by 20%.
The scheme was only launched last year, but already 12 companies have signed up to look for alternatives to flying for business meetings. The majority of these save money and carbon emissions by using video conferencing and using other methods of transportation that are low carbon, such as rail.
“The Scottish government is proud to be the first government organisation to sign up to WWF’s One in Five challenge.” said Stewart Stevenson, minister for transport and climate change, in an official statement. “As an organisation, we are taking action to ensure that, where business journeys are necessary, we travel sustainably.”
He said the government flew half a million miles less in 2008/09 and have considerably reduced their air travel costs, which dropped by almost a quarter. “We are also making increasing use of video conference facilities, when appropriate, instead of travelling to meetings in the UK,” said Mr Stevenson.
WWF-UK says that businesses can remain competitive and cut back on travel “demonstrating that in the future, those companies that change their working practises will be better adapted in a carbon constrained world.” They also explain that members have made massive carbon savings and improved their work-life balance of staff who spend more time at home.
Another company to sign up to the challenge is Sky. Fiona Ball, head of environment at Sky, said: “Sky has been taking action on climate change for five years now and through embracing technology such as video conferencing, we cut our business air travel emissions by 35% over the past three years.”
