Let’s end the daily commute!

Peter du ToitI'm the founder of FutureWork IQ where I spend my time assisting businesses to improve their climate literacy so as to understand the projected impacts from the expanding climate crisis and how to adapt their workplaces in the face of these impacts.

If you have been following our posts here for any length of time you would have seen us talk about the rapidly rising need to decouple your business from fossil fuel touch points.

It’s a mammoth task, but one we can not shy away from. Governments across the world are beginning to urgently look at ways to accelerate this decoupling.

As we approach the COP26 climate talks many governments are publishing their revised decarbonisation commitments.

Decarbonising transportation plays a major role in this process.

In the UK for example, transportation (cars & vans) contributes 20% to the country’s carbon emission footprint and the government recently released an ambitious plan entitled Decarbonising Transport — A Better, Greener Britain to radically reduce this footprint.

In the forward to this plan Grant Shapps the Secretary of State for Transport makes this observation:

The pandemic has taught us many lessons one of them being that 100’s of millions of knowledge workers do not have to commute to offices everyday and that video meetings and online events are viable replacements for being in-person.

As Shapps notes “these things in themselves will save thousands of times of carbon”

We have the technology and know-how to immediately remove millions of fossil fuel driven commutes as we have successfully proven during the pandemic.

There is every reason to believe that these behaviours will become mandated as we race to reduce carbon emissions.

Here is the course of wisdom: Make remote working a permanent feature in your business, in fact I would argue become location independent if you can. This will help you get ahead of the looming carbo legislation.