Explore the environmental toll of commuting and learn how a sustainability rewards tool can reduce your organizational carbon footprint
Our planet hosts billions of daily commuters, and the combined impacts of their transportation choices take a major toll on the environment. Globally, about 95% of the energy used for transportation comes from the fossil fuels that are driving climate change.
While commuting’s role in climate change is a top concern, work-related transportation negatively affects the environment in many other ways:
Air and water pollution
Vehicle emissions produce carbon monoxide and dioxide, nitrogen oxide, methane, and other forms of particulate matter that pollute the air we breathe. These pollutants have become so common that virtually every urbanized corner of the planet now grapples with air quality issues.
Commuting also affects our water supplies. Runoff from road networks contain a whole host of toxic substances, from engine oil and gasoline to antifreeze and brake fluid. The improper disposal of these and other automotive products also cause water contamination, placing further pressure on our already stressed water resources.
Habitat destruction and biodiversity losses
Oil and gas exploration, extraction, and production activities — which are driven in large part by consumer demand for vehicle fuel — ravage natural environments and devastate plant and animal habitats. Electric vehicles (EVs) have similar impacts, since we still produce about 60% of our electricity from fossil fuels.
As road infrastructure expands, habitats shrink. The 2023 book Traffication also explains the damaging effects of road traffic on animal behaviors, movements, and biological processes.
This toxic combination of land degradation, pollution, and intrusive disruption accelerates the stunning biodiversity losses climate scientists have already documented.
Health hazards
Sedentary forms of commuting have many negative consequences for individual health. According to the USC Keck School of Medicine, commuting exposes people to ambient pollutants associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, cancer, and many other serious and chronic health conditions.
Public health also suffers: These pollutants contaminate human environments on a mass scale, elevating these risks for virtually everyone who lives in an urban setting.
The economic costs of commuting-related pollution
Commuting-related pollution carries a high cost and diverts scarce financial resources away from programs that could be remediating environmental damage. The figures put forward by experts are staggering:
- A 2020 study of 400 European cities estimated that pollution from road emissions carries an annual cost of €385 million (about $420 million) per city
- UK researchers estimate that commuting-related emissions carry an annual cost of £2.7 billion ($3.5 billion) in England alone
- A 2021 report placed the annual social costs of road emissions in the United States at $184 billion
Commuting remains an environmental problem with no easy solution. However, employers can use specialized software solutions to help mitigate their commuters’ impacts.
Use a sustainability rewards tool to build a culture of sustainable commuting
For most companies, the Scope 3 emissions generated by commuting accounts for 65% to 95% of their total climate-related emissions. Targeting the commute makes perfect sense for any organization looking to engage employees in improving its sustainability profile.
A sustainability rewards tool has the powerful effect of gamifying the commute and turning it into a tool for building a positive and socially responsible workplace culture. Using a combination of practical commuter tools and social reinforcement, sustainability recognition apps make it easy and fun to choose more sustainable modes of transportation.
Along the way, users collect kudos and shout-outs from peers, along with points they can redeem for cool rewards. When integrated into a complete set of green employee programs, a sustainability rewards tool can incentivize long-term behavior change — and that makes a difference.
Pave Commute users agree: 97% say they’ve been able to use the app to make positive contributions to their employer’s sustainability goals, and 71% receive positive social reinforcement from their peers.
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