EXHAUSTED DRIVING SUSTAINABILITY IN BUSINESS Issue 9 – Spring 2015
Environment
Cows’ effect isn’t black & white
Lutz
Pathfinder Pod – Milton Keynes
SIX
– steps to make your business eco-friendly
/ Marketplace for renewable energy
Mobile Payment – with our Liftshare Scheme
/ Making UK Transport more efficient
EDITOR’S NOTE Now I’ve always been enamoured by cows, but when it comes to the environment they’ve never had a particularly good reputation through no fault of their own, their emissions and outputs have created quite the debate. However, in a new book ‘Cows Save The Planet’ the common theories are turned upside down to demonstrate these great creatures may not be the demons they’ve been made out to be. See page 5 for more information. And whilst we’ve been blaming the cows for our environmental problems, the article on page 8 looks at our own reliance on cars and how we can reduce this to help combat carbon emissions, through car-sharing.
share (page 10) as well as seeing how Jaguar Land Rover and West Sussex Council are utilising this alternative method of transport to tackle their own issues. But whilst promotion of car-sharing is rife, there’s a new mode of travel on its way that may remove the need to own/drive cars as we know it today. In a new trial in Milton Keynes you can read about the driverless technology that could change the face of travel in our cities and beyond - everything you need to know is on the page opposite. This is just a little of what you’ll find amongst these pages and we hope you enjoy it.
As a regular theme in this publication, we’ve also covered the latest developments in the car-sharing industry - looking at how mobile payment is being adopted to make it easier to
Happy reading... Jemma - Editor jemma@liftshare.com
CONTENTS
Lutz Pathfinder Pod
Making your business more eco-friendly
3
Mobile payments with Lfitshare
4
A Cows’ environmental impact isn’t quite black and white
5
Making UK transport more efficient
6-7
First marketplace for renewable energy
DRIVING SUSTAINABILITY IN BUSINESS
Improving access and employment with West Sussex Council
12
How over 80% of all non-walking trips are by car
2
10
8 9
Jaguar / Land Rover’s success in tackling parking congestion
11 Web: www.liftshare.com/business LinkedIn www.linkedin.com/ company/liftshare
LUTZ Pod?
EXHAUSTED
Have
you heard
of
Pathfinder Coming to a street near you… if you’re in Milton Keynes anyway. The electric-powered vehicles can seat two people and are designed to work on pavements and pedestrianized areas. They are being built by RDM Group, one of the UK’s fastest growing advanced engineering companies, and will be equipped with sensor and navigation technology provided by the University of Oxford’s Mobile Robotics Group. Later this year, the pods will be tested in an “urban laboratory” using a route agreed with project partners Milton Keynes Council. This will be the first time driverless vehicles have been used in an urban community setting, and they will be gradually introduced following a series of tests in a safe, controlled, environment.
Technology such as driverless vehicles, intelligent phone apps, and social media, will transform how we travel in the future – making journeys safer, faster, and more connected. The UK is at the forefront of the emerging new driverless technology and poised to become the leading supplier of autonomous vehicles and systems around the world. Safety is a key benefit of driverless technology and the pods features reflect this with the inclusion of pedestrian protection, low vehicle speed and 19 electronic sensors/cameras and an emergency stop to name a few.
This will be the “ first time driverless
If this technology can be proven and takes off, the future landscape of our roads could change dramatically – the question is... will it be for the better?
vehicles have been used in an urban community setting...
”
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6
steps to making your business more eco-friendly
In a recent report, 80% of consumers want to support a green business and will let that knowledge influence their decision making process. This is just one of a stack of reasons for making sure you’ve got ‘green’ on the brain when it comes to your organisation. And here is our helping hand – 6 super-easy ways to start making a difference today…
1 Change your lighting According to the Environmental Protection Agency, energy efficient florescent light bulbs use 75% less energy than traditional incandescent bulbs.
2C ut down on heating and cooling Set the thermometer higher or lower depending on business and nonbusiness hours, and don’t spend money on heating or cooling unused rooms. You’d be surprised at what a difference this can make!
3 Don’t print Pretty self-explanatory we think!
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4 Use motion sensors in restrooms for water Did you know that one drop of water wasted per second adds up to 10,000 liters per year? To prevent this from happening, install motion sensors in office restrooms so employees cannot accidentally leave the water on.
5 Encourage car- sharing – we couldn’t fairly well miss this one could we! Do your employees travel long distances to get to and from work? Set up a Liftshare program and provide preferred parking or other benefits, to encourage regular sharing.
6 Be committed Keeping everyone involved and in the loop fosters commitment.
&
EXHAUSTED
’ s w Co black
environmental impact isn’t as
white
as we thought!
Cows have previously been named ‘Top Destroyer of the Planet’ – even worse than cars and planes. But is this bad reputation about to change? To understand the argument, it’s important to stay grounded… in the soil. In a new book ‘Cows Save the Planet’ Dr Judith D. Schwartz challenges much of the conventional thinking about global warming and other problems. The book presents soil as a vessel for many of our environmental, economic and social crises; climate change, desertification, biodiversity loss, droughts, floods, wildfires, rural poverty, malnutrition, obesity— it is all dependent on how we treat the soil! And where do cows fit in? Cattle, like all grazing creatures, can, if appropriately managed, restore land and help build soil.
Cattle, like “ all grazing
creatures, can, if appropriately managed, restore land and help build soil.
”
Let’s look at the climate for example, when we focus on carbon dioxide, we neglect the central role of water in soil—“green water”— in temperature regulation. Much of the carbon dioxide that burdens the atmosphere is not the result of fuel emissions, but from agriculture; returning carbon to the soil not only reduces carbon dioxide levels but also enhances soil fertility. Cows can play a pivotal role in soil maintenance. ‘Cows Save the Planet’ is a surprising, informative, and ultimately hopeful book and one we’d recommend!
DRIVING SUSTAINABILITY IN BUSINESS
5
UK
Making transport more efficient
fleximobility
with
and car-sharing
As reported on the Liftshare Consumer Blog. UK transportation is stuck in a rut. Rail fares are rising every year, gridlock problems continue to plague our roads, and transport poverty has become a very real issue for low-income households.
M
ulti-modals were mentioned in the same report. This is a term given to people who travel using a mix of methods on a day-to-day basis. They might cycle one day or combine a bus and taxi trip the next. As complicated as that may sound, this is often the simplest, most direct – but not necessarily cheapest – method for people using public transport every day. Enter Greg Marsden, Professor of Transport Governance at the Institute for Transport Studies at Leeds University. He has coined and drafted a green paper around a concept called ‘Fleximobility’ that proposes sea changes to the UK’s transport sector with money-saving and convenience firmly in mind. Greg and his team also look to lower carbon emissions, introduce new smart technology into transport, while incorporating the shared travel ethos into our everyday lives. While the concept may seem bold to some, it’s clear something needs to be done to reduce the amount of roads being built in the UK, and to support the efforts of bodies like Campaign For Better Transport , which strive to make the roads we have more efficient, instead of simply building more as a short-term solution to a broad problem.
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DRIVING SUSTAINABILITY IN BUSINESS
We spoke with Greg recently to discuss the Fleximobility concept, and to better understand how it can help improve transport for all. Here’s what we discussed.
Liftshare: Can you give our readers a top-line overview of what Fleximobility means to you, and why it is important to the UK?
Greg: Fleximobility is about designing the transport system so that it is more normal for people to travel by a range of modes of transport more of the time. It is essential to the future transport strategy because we are not yet making the technological progress in emissions reduction [we] anticipated. It is good for health and we need a balanced approach to managing urban congestion. A lot is made of the potential for smart technology to help. The key issue however is whether smart technology will fulfil its potential if it is introduced in a system which is not structured to being spontaneous and multi-modal.
Liftshare: Where in your mind does the UK transport sector
We need solutions and Liftshare “ is in the market of developing and delivering these... ” Liftshare: To what extent would offering the public a singleticket option for all of these transport methods solve a great deal of problems?
get it wrong at present, and what can be done?
Greg: I would start by saying there are lots of examples of things we get right. Liftshare is an organisation that does a lot of this. However, you can find examples all-round the country of effective bike sharing schemes or personalised travel planning linked to new investments. However, there is not enough [people] joining up. This can be in failing to develop skills and a desire for independent mobility without always relying on your own car at the transition from subsidised college travel to early work years. In other ways, being occasionally more multi-modal is not rewarded through high cost single tickets and pre-booking slots for bicycles on trains or by all-or-nothing car park permits for workplace parking.
Liftshare: One term in your green paper – ‘multi-modals’ – is being used a lot lately. Why do you think this approach to transport is being used more often these days?
Greg: It might be a recognition of a shift in the culture of ownership of vehicles, at least amongst younger people or a recognition of the need to do things differently. With mobile technology people can do more on the move nowadays when they aren’t driving. It is important to say that almost everyone is multi-modal. We focus too much on putting people in coarse categories of ‘cyclist’ and ‘car driver’. If you ask people what they ‘usually do’ as we tend to in our surveys then you get a reductionist answer. If you find out what they actually do it is much more varied. If you look across the lifecourse then everyone is multi-modal.
Greg: Simplifying ticketing and moving across modes [of transport] has to be pushed. People want to get from A to B and know what they are going to pay however they do it, and they only want to pay once.
Liftshare: The notion of ‘ghost cars’ – those going unused – suggests their owners can’t afford to keep them running, yet the RAC found that 81% of ghost car owners weren’t prepared to part with their vehicle. To what extent are we at an impasse here?
Greg: Car clubs, car-sharing in its various forms and innovations in the taxi market might chip away here. The motor manufacturers are also proposing new models of more flexible ownership. There may be some generational effects to be considered. We need a mix of solutions and Liftshare is in the market of developing and delivering these solutions. There is a lot to learn through these experiences.
Liftshare: What are your potential next steps for the Fleximobility green paper, and what should people out there do if they’d like to help make a change in the way they travel?
Greg: We have run four workshops in cities in the UK and will be next working with citizens to refine the ideas further. Our aim is then to take this back to national government with a clear set of priorities for what needs to be done differently in order to make being more multi-modal, more often, more normal.
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OVER of non-walking trips in Britain are now by car! As a nation we have come to rely on the car for mobility. The most popular journey purpose is shopping, whether to the corner shop to buy the newspapers, the weekly trip by car to the supermarket or the expedition to a shopping centre for less frequent purchases.
A
fter shopping comes, in descending order, commuting to work, visiting friends, travelling to college, personal business, and escorting others e.g. Liftsharing. Cars will always be popular, but car-sharing is worth encouraging in preference to individuals owning their own car, given that private cars are parked for 95 per cent of the time and that people who share cars drive substantially less than those who own cars.
Considerations should be made to nudge people out of their cars – more exercise to counter obesity, less congestion and lower carbon emissions. This is particularly relevant for suburban living, where the facilities we need to reach are not so close that we naturally walk, nor so far that the car, if we have one, need to be the inevitable option. myPTP, Liftshare’s unique personal travel planning tool can be used to raise awareness of alternative modes of transport. For more information contact tellmemore@liftshare.com
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DRIVING SUSTAINABILITY IN BUSINESS
EXHAUSTED
The first ever
Renewable energy online marketplace for businesses
The UK’s first renewable electricity peer-to-peer online marketplace will be trialled later this year following a deal between green energy supplier Good Energy and tech start-up Open Utility. The trial of Piclo will enable businesses and independent renewable energy generators to buy and sell green energy locally, and at the best price. The innovative service will put consumers at the heart of energy and could unlock the potential of renewables in the UK. The news that Good Energy is partnering on Piclo is an important milestone for the ground-breaking project, which last year won backing from the Department of Energy and Climate Change and has been in the planning for more than two years. Good Energy works with an extensive network of independent renewable energy generators and has a growing base of business customers.
Details of the pilot are still to be worked out, but it’s believed the partners are currently looking to recruit “pilot sites” comprising of two or more renewable generators and commercial consumers in “three or four regions” across the UK, before the trial is set to go live in August. Open Utility started by imagining that the best target for the first peer-topeer marketplace would be residential customers, but found it wasn’t. The regulatory barriers, particularly around consumer protection, make it difficult. In the residential market it would also require metering data that isn’t yet in place. So, the new goal is to try and prove the value to commercial consumers via the trial and pave the way for change in the residential market.
DRIVING SUSTAINABILITY IN BUSINESS
9
mobile payments on Liftshare schemes
Here come...
Liftshare are pleased to announce that we will shortly be launching a pilot program that will allow members, within our business schemes, to pay their financial contributions to drivers through their mobile.
In a joint partnership with Droplet the new venture will make it easy to instantly pay for your lift. Whilst the Liftshare cost calculator already allows users to calculate how much they should pay towards journey costs, adding mobile payment is about making the process of sharing even simpler. For the purpose of the pilot, members within the chosen schemes will receive £3 free credit to use within Droplet for their Liftshare. Whether users pay by mobile is entirely up to them, but this new option provides a complete solution.
...all it “ takes is an app download and registration.. it’s absolutely free.
”
Not only that, there are no fees involved for the service – all it takes is an app download and registration. Moving money, even back into your bank, is
absolutely free. Liftshare are continuously developing their offering and this is just one of many steps we will be taking in the next few months to deliver what our customers want. Watch this space for more updates coming soon!
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DRIVING SUSTAINABILITY IN BUSINESS
EXHAUSTED
s ’ r r a e v u o g R a J Land in s s e c c su kling tac
k r a p r n
cagestio
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Fast facts Jaguar Land Rover was recently looking for a solution to reduce congestion in their car park and around the local area in Whitley – as a result they opted to introduce a private Liftshare scheme for their organisation. Car-sharing can play a major role in helping you reduce the costs and CO2 arising from your business.
...386 “ members in
30 days (and counting!)
The exponential take up of an organisation focused scheme, just like Jaguar Land Rover, demonstrates the value that can be gained from providing a bespoke car-share solution for your employees. The typical benefit cost ratio of having a Liftshare scheme is >30:1
”
• 2 00 car-sharing bays were put in place, in prime location in the car park, to encourage sharing • A policy for ‘BUDi team’ creation was implemented, for use of the bays • A Liftshare gold launch event was held to promote the new car-sharing bays and help individuals find their match • 386 members registered in 30 days (and counting!) • 90 BUDi teams have been created so far • Mileage savings by BUDi teams (forecast for next 12 months – 3,253,174 miles • Financial savings by BUDi teams (forecast for next 12 months) - £799,253 • C O2 savings by BUDi teams (forecast for next 12 months) – 1071.1 tonnes
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11
West Sussex Council find ways
to improve access to employment and more! Originally West Sussex set up a Liftshare scheme to facilitate car-sharing to industrial estates and other employment sites; improving access to jobs.
However the scheme has evolved and they now promote it to developers who are preparing either workplace or residential Travel Plans in order to comply with planning requirements. As a large employer themselves, the county council also wanted a system that would enable them to promote car-sharing to their own employees as part of their Staff Travel Plan to reduce commuting and business travel by private car. They now have a number of dedicated carsharing bays for staff at County Hall.
able to demonstrate “theBeing scheme has hundreds of members gives it credibility... ” A little background on the routes in Five of the county’s ten main towns are located on the south coast, which is served by the A27(T) and the Coastway West rail route. Traffic congestion is a particular problem around Chichester, Arundel, and Worthing. The other main towns, along with Gatwick Airport, are located in the north east quadrant and are linked to both London and the coast by the A24, A23/M23 (T). They are also serviced by Southern’s Mainline West route.
The story so far… West Sussex implemented a regional scheme available to members of the public ,which also incorporates 16 private groups that work in partnership with the council. They have used a combination of various media to promote West Sussex Car Share including: • Posters • Leaflets • Online video • Radio adverts • Boards at Crawley Town FC • Promotional pens, pencils and keyrings During 2013/14 and 2014/15 the council promoted
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DRIVING SUSTAINABILITY IN BUSINESS
The 2011 census reported that approximately 394,700 West Sussex residents are in employment. Of these 58% (c.229,000) usually drive to work with a further 4.7% commuting as car passengers (c.18,550). Therefore at least around 37,000 employed residents currently car-share to work. The main target audience for car-sharing promotion is therefore the 192,000 people that currently drive alone to work.
West Sussex Carshare to business networks and the wider community as part of their recent Sustainable Travel Towns programme (Local Sustainable Transport Fund). Over the period 831 new members joined the scheme; bringing the total to 3,797 members. From these members: • 1,288 journeys are available for sharing • 232 members are confirmed as sharing a regular journey • 50,854 passenger trips are forecasted for the next 12 mths • 296 tonnes of CO2 to be saved in the next 12 months via 124 BUDi teams Being able to demonstrate that the scheme has hundreds of members gives it credibility, shows people that others are doing it, and also gives comfort that users will find a car share partner. With the help and support of Liftshare, we anticipate the success of this scheme will continue.
We are pleased with the friendly service that “ we receive from Liftshare. Being able to access
all the monitoring information and ideas for campaigns online is extremely valuable and helps us to assess the impact our marketing is having.
”
Andy Mouland – West Sussex County Council