IT consulting and
professional services firm Capgemini recently won an environmental award for
its corporate travel program, which next year will include personal carbon
budgets.
BusinessGreen, a website offering news, information and advice on environmental
responsibility, awarded Capgemini its Green Transport Project of the Year. About
400 Capgemini employees in the United Kingdom next year will "find out if
they can stay within their new carbon budgets as part of the latest phase of
the company's pioneering TravelWell program," according to BusinessGreen.
Capgemini already issues
reports on individual business traveler carbon emissions—6,000 have been made
available through an intranet site—and "has sold the system to Tesco and
is in the early stages of negotiations with similar-sized clients," according
to BusinessGreen, citing Capgemini UK
finance director Tony Deans, who also serves as TravelWell program director.
Deans told BusinessGreen that the
program, if successful, could be expanded by 2014 to include 7,500 employees
and could include interdepartment carbon-allocation trading.
According to Capgemini,
business travel accounts for 30 percent of the firm's total carbon footprint.
"A key assumption of the business model has always been that the right
skills and experience of employees are matched with clients' business
challenges, regardless of location," the firm wrote on its website. "So,
it was a particular challenge to introduce initiatives that support employees
in reducing the carbon emissions from their business travel."
Capgemini's TravelWell
team includes the company CFO and representatives from the firm's travel,
procurement, IT, human resources, facilities, communications and sustainability
departments. The program includes training and personal carbon statements;
encourages remote conferencing, collaboration tools and rail travel instead of air
travel when possible; and offers "green parking" spaces for employees
who carpool or drive low-emissions vehicles.
Capgemini on its site
listed some results, including a 12.6 percent cut in travel-related carbon
emissions since 2008 and a 32 percent improvement in "the average
emissions profile of Capgemini's company car fleet." The company also met World
Wide Fund for Nature's One in Five Challenge to reduce by 20 percent within
five years the number of business flights taken by employees, and in 2011
introduced a "no travel week" that saved £24,000.