Businesses 'ignoring green travel'

The Observer,
Sunday September 7 2008

Businesses may have exemplary environmental policies when it comes to travel, but their employees are simply ignoring them, according to a major survey released last week.
The Barclaycard Business Travel Survey asked 3,000 British business people about their travel habits. It found that while large numbers of companies had environmental policies in place covering travel, just 1 per cent of those interviewed adhered to them and had reduced the amount they travelled in the previous year.
'Many companies do have an environmental policy, but employees may not know about it,' said Denise Leleux of Barclaycard. 'There is very little evidence of any significant shift in the behaviour of business travellers, despite the volumes of media coverage given to this area and the corresponding level of comment by the business community.'
Figures from BAA show that at Heathrow, for example, 40 per cent of all passengers are travelling for business. Critics argue that businesses should be the first to cut back on flying because video-conferencing is a viable alternative to travelling to meetings.
The survey also suggests that large firms are failing to take the lead with an environmental approach to travel. It found that only 16 per cent of large companies had environmental policies, compared with 22 per cent of medium sized firms. Perhaps more damning still is the revelation that a large proportion of business leaders think it's not up to them to take action - 40 per cent of the 238 company chairmen surveyed said tackling the environmental impact of travel was the government's job, while only 13 per cent said it was the role of the employer.