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Travel & Transport

Staff Travel

Involving teams in positive travel changes is a brilliant place to help shape behavioural change and drive down our emissions across the planet. 

Any event, virtual or live, will require a certain amount of travel by staff, crew, vendors, performers and organisers.

From the talent to the camera-op, clients to the cleaning staff, everyone has to travel to the event.

Aviation accounts for around 2.5% of global carbon emissions and while this seems like a relatively small amount it creates a longer-term lock-in effect, which has potent impacts on warming. Flying is the most carbon emitting activity per minute.

Eliminating flights from staff traveland replacing these with rail journeys (and maybe even an overnight stop off in a warm and balmy European city) is one of the easiest ways event organisers can eliminate emissions immediately.

There are a number of ways we can encourage responsible staff travel to and from our events. We all have our part to play.

Get ideas for taking action below or benchmark your progress.

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What we can do...

1. Act locally

Hiring event staff, crew, caterers and vendors who are local to the venue provides the ideal opportunity to reduce our impact on carbon emissions.

This also creates positive social impacts and boosts to local economies.

2. Virtual reality

Hybrid events can mean more than just beaming shows to audiences!

Consider how talent takes part at shows and how virtual speakers might suit at-home audiences without detracting from the in-person experience.

3. The golden age of railway

Travel emissions can be reduced as much as 95% per passenger when switching from flight to train.

Most train journeys from the UK to event hotspots like Paris, Barcelona and Berlin can often be achieved in a day but are often overlooked in the interest of ‘speed’. But with check-in, disembarking, passport control plus flight time, an entire day can be lost in travel.

Unlike air travel, a train journey provides opportunities for making calls, responding to emails and having meetings whilst in transit. Plus there’s a chance to stretch your legs and see the countryside you’re travelling through too!

4. Brainstorm reducing onsite travel emissions

Event planners are solutions focused. Putting those brains to the challenge of reducing travel emissions invariably generates some great ideas.

Could cycling or walking to the event location be rewarded? Could car-pooling be incentivised or built into crew contracts? Is it possible to provide public transport passes instead of travel per diems?

This will help reduce emissions and can often save money too.

5. Measure your footprint

Measuring the carbon footprint of staff travel is easier than measuring audience travel.

Requesting travel details can be built into contracts or collected at crew registration.

The method of transport and the distance travelled will need to be captured to accurately measure emissions.

6. Carbon balance staff travel

Organisations can positively invest into the planet by contributing to carbon balancing schemes, such as tree planting or conservation and clean energy projects.

Across the supply chain, these schemes are cheap with a hugely positive impact, when combined with reducing emissions from travel in the first instance.

We recommend speaking to ecolibirum to balance travel. Crew and staff can also be offered the option to balance their flights in addition to organisation balancing.

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