You can show your committment to reducing the environmental, financial and social impacts from your businesstravel.

This means both looking at ways to reduce miles travelled and also identifying methods of transport with lower carbon emissions per mile, reduced cost, and improved safety for the employee and those around them.

Staff and line managers should therefore make the following assessments prior to making each business journey.

1. Can the need for the journey be achieved through the use of audio- or videoconferencing facilities?
If so, these should always be the first option to help remove all CO2 emissions and
the bulk of the cost per journey.

2 . Can the journey be carried out by public transport – rail, tube, bus or tram?
Public transport is an especial requirement for all journeys between urban centres. It is a safer mode of transport than the car, generally results in lower emissions, and can be more business efficient taking into account ability to work, road delays, etc.

3. Is there an official car available for the journey?
If you travel over 8,000 business miles each year, you may qualify for a lease car and this is strongly recommended as the most cost effective option for you. If you do not qualify for a lease car, consider borrowing one from a colleague.

4. Is there a pool car available for the journey?
For round trips over 100 miles, employees are required to use a pool car (where one
is available) or a hire car as an alternative to grey fleet. Pool cars are newer cars, managed and maintained for employee usage. By maximising use of the pool car fleet, carbon emissions and costs can be reduced.

5. Will a hire car be cost effective?
For round trips over 100 miles, employees are required to use a pool car or hire car
as an alternative to grey fleet. Hire cars provide better value for longer journeys and typically have lower emissions levels than grey fleet vehicles.

6. Where none of the above options is available, authorised grey fleet may be
used for round trips under 100 miles.
Employees may only use their grey fleet vehicle for journeys under 100 miles provided that they are able to display to their line manager that they have a valid driving licence, full business insurance, up-to-date MOT and service history.