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Capgemini
Organisational challenge/context
Recognising that business travel comprised 30% of company’s total carbon footprint, Capgemini chose a strategy to integrate three themes that are usually tackled in isolation:
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Avoiding and reducing carbon emissions from business travel;
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Reducing costs to both clients and Capgemini;
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Addressing employee ‘lifestyle’ challenges from significant amounts of travel.
Sustainable travel / Alternatives to travel intervention(s)
Capgemini operates in an industry where business travel is the norm. A key assumption of the business model is that the right skills and experience of employees are matched with clients’ business challenges, regardless of location. Capgemini teams work alongside clients to deliver business change. And clients, quite naturally, expect to see the people whose fees they are paying.
So, it was a particular challenge to introduce initiatives that support employees in reducing the carbon emissions from their business travel. Capgemini created a cross-functional “TravelWell” team, led by the CFO and resourced with people from Travel, Procurement, IT, HR, Facilities, Communications and Sustainability. They are charged with designing and delivering the tools, technologies and policies to enable business travellers to reduce their carbon emissions though giving them more choices about whether and how they travel. The key dimensions of this approach are:
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Travelling less – providing reliable technology based alternatives to non-essential travel; and
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Travelling ‘differently’ – encouraging the use of lower-carbon forms of transport for travel that is unavoidable.
Results/benefits
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Carbon emissions from travel fell by 14.5% (2007 -2009), from 17,524 tonnes to 14,977 tonnes.
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The “average” emissions profile of Capgemini’s company car fleet has improved 18% since 2006, from 168 CO2 g/km to 137 CO2 g/km.
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Achieved WWF-UK’s “One in Five Challenge” (reducing business flights by 20% in 5 years). A founder sponsor of the Challenge, Capgemini achieved this in the first year, reducing flights by 4,508.
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Video Conferencing utilisation rates have approximately doubled.