CASE STUDIES
Beyondly
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Beyondly is an environmental compliance and consultancy company based on a business park estate in Skipton, North Yorkshire. We operate out of one leased office and have around 40 employees.
Beyondly became signatories to the Pledge in 2020. This case study focuses particularly on Beyondly's initiatives to cut business travel and employee commuting emissions.
The Challenge
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Business travel and employee commuting together accounted for around 70% of our 2021 carbon footprint. Being located in a rural country estate we are challenged by our location. We have a number of long-distance commuters and the office is difficult to access via public transport or to cycle to safely due to a busy main road. We don’t have any company cars, so it is difficult to influence our employees to choose lower carbon transport options.
The Outcome
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In the first 6 months of introducing the scheme we had 785 shared miles claimed, and some staff have benefited from payments of up to £100 a month as a result of regular car sharing. Overall emissions have reduced 27% in 2021 against our 2019 baseline. This whilst rapidly growing business size and turnover.
The pandemic obviously had an impact in 2020 but our 2021 figures prove that we are managing to keep business travel emissions down. In a reopening world we reduced our business travel by 88% against our pre-pandemic baseline. Employee commuting emissions have reduced by 11% in 2021 compared to 2019.
Susanna Jackson PIEMA
Sustainability Consultant, Beyondly​
Would you recommend this to others?
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Yes – this would work well for organisations located in rural areas where public transport options are limited.
The Solution
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In recent years we have focused on these as areas we can act on in the short term and have a higher degree of control over. In 2021 we set KPIs around reducing business travel, use of the electric pool car, and limiting travel. We began to track employee commuting by car type so that we could calculate emissions from these more accurately.
To tackle employee commuting we’ve implemented a cycle to work scheme and an electric car salary sacrifice scheme through Octopus. Two directors are now using electric cars, and one more employee decided to get an EV as a direct result of trying and enjoying driving our electric pool car. Additionally, we have a working from home benefit in which staff can work from home two days a week, which in some cases has cut commuter emissions by half.
One of the most successful schemes we have introduced has been our car share scheme. Staff can car share with another member of staff on any day of the week and claim back their mileage expenses for one day per week. This results in fuel savings for both the passenger not having to use their own car, and gives the driver a nice reimbursement of 45p per mile back on their commute! To promote our car sharing scheme we have implemented some helpful area maps to show where every employee is located so that staff can easily see who is on their route to work. We also have a Car Share WhatsApp group in place where staff can message one another about car sharing.
What is your number 1 recommendation for others?
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The key is to keep staff engaged, for example by reporting progress against KPIs and keeping them updated on your Net Zero journey, this maintains momentum and keeps everyone involved.