Choosing transport methods with the least environmental impacts

To understand how to reduce the environmental impact of your business transport the first thing you need to do is assess your current use of transport. This allows you to identify where you can cut your emissions.

You could simply record the type and volume and purpose of transport that your business uses. For more detailed analysis, you can work out the carbon footprint of your business transport.

Traffic Scotland: CO₂ emissions calculator per type of transport

GOV.UK: Measuring and reporting environmental impacts (UK)

If your business has a fleet of vehicles, reduce emissions and save costs by choosing models with lower emissions or looking at alternative means of transport. See the page in this guideline: Choose low-emission vehicles

Educate employees about the effects of different types of travel on the environment and encourage them to travel actively or by train and bus rather than by car wherever possible. Link to active travel schemes (e.g. bike hire), public transport websites and timetables from your intranet.

Think about journeys in advance and develop a travel hierarchy. Encourage employees to think in advance about journeys. Could a face-to-face meeting be replaced by a telephone conference call or could meetings in the same area be arranged for the same day?

Make use of journey planning tools, such as:

Translink: Journey planner (Northern Ireland)

Transport Scotland: Tools for planning your journey

Promote walking or cycling, possibly as part of a health and well-being campaign.

See our guideline on how to create a workplace travel plan.

You should also consider the environmental impact of transporting goods and materials to and from your business. See the page in this guideline on how to Reduce the environmental impact of transport logistics