What are employee commute emissions?
Emissions caused by employee commuting are the greenhouse gases released from the combustion of fossil fuels used for all regular work-related commuting, including both private and public transportation, by employees of your organisation.
Note: It is important to not confuse employee commuting emissions with business travel emissions – the latter are those emerging from irregular trips, e.g. to client sites or events.
These emissions come from various sources:
- Transportation modes:
- Private cars
- Public transportation
- Motorcycles
- Electric vehicles
- Electric bikes/scooters
- Work from home emissions:
- Heating consumption
- Electricity for lighting
- Powering electronic devices
The emissions are calculated using three possible methods:
- Distance traveled per commuting type (most accurate)
- Number of commuters per mode of transport
- Bring your own emissions approach
Accordingly, employee commute emissions are most relevant to companies that have physical offices. Companies with employees commuting to offices on a regular basis most likely to produce significant volume of these emissions and need to manage and reduce these to achieve regulatory compliance and cost savings.
What calculation method is the most suited to your business?
There are three main methods to calculate employee commute emissions. The table below provides a short overview and comparison of each:
1. Distance travelled per commuting type
This is the most accurate calculation method. It involves:
- Multiplying the total distance travelled by an emission factor specific to each travel type
- Includes various modes: bike/foot, public transportation, car, motorcycle, electric bike, electric car, electric motorcycle, and electric scooter
- For electric vehicles, uses location-based emission factors representing average energy generation emissions
- For public transportation, passenger numbers are factored into calculations
2. Number of commuters per mode of transport
This method uses:
- The absolute number of employees using each transport mode (public transport, private cars, and bike/foot)
- Does not support electric and hybrid vehicles
- Combines data with work-from-home patterns to calculate "office employees" coefficient
- Multiplies employee numbers by average commuting distance and emission factors based on country and timeframe
3. Bring Your Own Emissions
This method allows organisations to upload their own pre-calculated emissions directly to the platform. Bring Your Own Emissions (BYOE) is an exclusive feature of Plan A's Sustainability Management Platform that allows users to upload their own pre-calculated emissions values to the platform. This data is usually based on intimate knowledge of the product, making them typically the most accurate emissions readings.
Additional Considerations
Work from home emissions:
Work from home emissions are calculated using:
- Average number of work from home days per week
- Working days per week
- Number of employees
- Number of employees working from home at least 1 day per week
- Average working hours per day
National averages:
When specific data is unavailable, calculations can use national averages for:
- Distance travelled
- Proportion of commuters per mode of transportation
These are then applied to organisational data including employee numbers and work-from-home patterns
Step-by-step guide to calculating emissions from employee commuting
To calculate employee commuting emissions in Plan A platform, follow these steps:
Choose your calculation method
- Select one of these calculation methods:
- Distance travelled per commuting type (recommended for most accurate results)
- Number of commuters per mode of transport
- Bring Your Own Emissions (BYOE)
Credit: Plan A
Collect and upload required data
For distance travelled method
Gather data from employees to understand:
- Their commuting patterns
- Distance traveled to and from work
- Mode of transportation used
Input data (e.g. CSV files) into the Plan A Platform, which may include fields such as:
- start_date (YYYY-MM-DD format)
- end_date (YYYY-MM-DD format)
- location (ISO-3166 alpha-2 country code)
- facility_name (must match organisational data)
- value (total round-trip distance)
- commuting type, choosing from:
- bike or foot
- public transportation
- car
- motorcycle
- electric bike
- electric car
- electric motorcycle
- electric scooter
Credit: Plan A
Special considerations
For public transportation:
- Consider factors such as distance for each public transport route, the number of passengers and how many employees take this route
Work from home emissions are calculated automatically through organisational data based on:
- Number of employees
- Number of employees working from home
- Average days worked from home per week
- Working hours per day
Work from home emissions Include both heating and electricity consumption while working from home.
Using national averages
If specific data is unavailable, Plan A system will use national averages for distance travelled and proportion of commuters per mode of transportation. This is based on organisational data including:
- Number of employees
- Number of work from home employees
- Average work from home days per week
Calculate and visualise emissions
To avoid the extensive time it takes to manually calculate emissions, utilise certified carbon accounting software such as Plan A’s Carbon Management Platform to calculate your carbon footprint from your company’s employee commute emissions.
Plan A’s software enables you to visualise these emissions in an easy-to-navigate and customisable dashboard – with a certified methodology that allows you to explore your data and make informed decisions with confidence.
Set targets and reduce emissions
Leverage Plan A’s predefined and custom action cards to efficiently reduce your company's emissions associated with employee commuting.
Schedule a call with Plan A to learn how our best-in-class carbon accounting software can streamline your employee commute emissions calculations.
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