Fleets struggling to capture carbon emissions data from commute

Almost half of fleets are not able to gather carbon emissions data from employee commuting, new research suggests.

Collecting and reporting on employee emissions 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, research from Mobilityways found that only 44% had 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 less, 42% of fleet managers, had accurate emissions reporting capability for wider business travel-related carbon emissions.

Scope 3 is focused on collecting emissions and other environmental, social, and governance (ESG) data from companies’ suppliers in their supply chain.

Some 42% of fleet managers said that the key driver for adoption of Scope 3 reporting was the need to improve resilience of their supply chain.

The same proportion (42%) of fleets said 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, was also a key driver.

More than half (54%) of fleets, however, said that their employers had already mandated absolute targets for employee commutes expressed as a reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2-eq).

Furthermore, more than two-thirds (69%) of fleets confirmed that they had already started reducing emissions linked to employee commutes.

Carbon-cutting measures

When asked how these employee commute reductions were being found, 55% of fleets (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.

Just over 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.

Julie Furnell, managing director of Mobilityways, said: “Employee commute data collection is being carried out by only about half of the large UK employers we reached for this study.

“It is part of a massive sustainability reporting workload included in Scope 3 reporting which most large businesses have now started work on.

“UK firms with listings either in New York or EU countries, or operating large subsidiaries in EU countries, and/or selling into the UK public sector will have to be the first to get Scope 3 emissions reporting right and begin to show emissions reductions year on year.”

Some 47% of respondents also said that they had installed electric vehicle (EV) charge points in company car parks.

Meanwhile, almost half (49%) had 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.

Scope 3 emissions reporting

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 £5 million.

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 2028.

Furnell said: “Understandably given this increasing workload, the reporting burden associated with company vehicle emissions data collecting is often being delegated to heads of transport and fleet managers.

“We find ourselves talking to more and more of them each month as they look for proven solutions for collecting the right data as well as finding proven strategies for transitioning their fleets to EV and stimulating staff to use greener modes of travel to work.”

Nearly three-quarters (73%) of firms which have already fully implemented Scope 3 reporting were also able to benchmark their employee commute emissions data against sector or peer group averages which are emerging.

Mobilityways commissioned market research agency Opinium to complete this nationwide study, which gained complete online responses from 300 large UK-based enterprises in April.

Mobilityways gained 100 full responses from the construction sector, 100 from the financial services sector and 100 from the healthcare sector, including NHS trusts.

More than two-thirds (70%) of all organisations responding had more than 1,000 employees.

A parallel study was conducted via Cognitive Publishing to reach the same mix of senior decision-makers in over 50 local authorities and 50 further education establishments.

Mobilityways received more than 125 responses from these two sectors in May 2023.

• Graeme Banister, Mobilityways account director will be speaking at Fleet & Mobility Live on October 3 at the NEC on the topic of future fleet operating models. Registrations for the free event are open now.