MANY of the UK’s transport and fleet managers in businesses with more than 500 employees, have not yet worked out a way of measuring Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions associated with their workers’ commutes to and from their place of work, a new study by emissions reporting specialist Mobilityways found.

Collecting and reporting on employee emissions of company fleets as part of so-called ‘indirect’ Scope 3 emissions reporting has already been mandated for businesses depending on large UK public sector contracts.

Despite this, only 44% of fleet and transport managers of these large firms confirmed that they already had consistently accurate, complete and transparent emissions data covering all types of commutes including staff using their own vehicles (so-called grey fleet) and multi-modal journeys to work. Even fewer, 42% of fleet managers, had accurate emissions reporting capability for wider business travel-related carbon emissions.

Fleet bosses of major UK employers felt that there were two key drivers stimulating increased adoption of Scope 3 reporting right now. Equal first, shared by 42% of fleet managers, was the fact that Scope 3 reporting is set to be mandated by stock exchanges around the world, starting with the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ by order of the US financial regulator the SEC by April 2024 at the latest.

Scope 3 is focused on collecting emissions and other ESG data from companies’ suppliers in their supply chain. 42% of fleet managers also saw that the key driver for adoption of Scope 3 reporting was the need to improve resilience of their supply chain.

More positively, over half (54%) of fleet and transport chiefs said their employers had already mandated absolute targets for employee commutes expressed as a reduction in GHG emissions in metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2-eq). Over two-thirds (69 per cent) of fleet heads confirmed that they had already started reducing emissions linked to employee commutes.

When asked how these employee commute reductions were being found, 55% of fleet management heads (that had found emissions reductions in this category) confirmed that new employment contracts had been issued reducing the number of days that staff needed to work per week. Nearly half (52%) had worked on reducing commuting distances, either by relocating offices to an area closer to a greater number of employees’ homes, or closer to public transport links.

Almost half had stimulated Electric Vehicle (EV) usage by installing EV charging stations in company car parks and brought in expert data and service providers to help gather GHG emissions data from employee commuting – using this data to stimulate staff commuting habit changes.

Employee commute emissions data collection and reporting is required as part of Scope 3 emissions reporting under the upcoming EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and the linked European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS) affecting UK businesses with substantial subsidiaries based inside the EU or with listings on EU stock exchanges.

Scope 3 reporting disclosure is already required for UK firms wishing to tender for public sector contracts worth over £5m. Central government bodies have already had to sign up to the Government Fleet Commitment for 25% of the Government car fleet to be Ultra Low Emission Vehicles (ULEVs) by the end of 2022, while 100% of the Government car and van fleet will need to be fully zero emission at the tailpipe by 31st December 2027.