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How do Green Steps impact transportation?
The Green Steps in Transportation are an opportunity for Reykjavík City to set a good example in transportation issues, reduce pollution, and contribute to a better city. Biking, walking, public transport, and the use of eco-friendly vehicles are among the activities that count as sustainable transportation. Green Steps in Transportation can have positive effects on an institution's operations, finances, and employee health, and also result in societal benefits.
Emissions from transportation are the largest portion of all emissions within the city limits. According to the 2021 emissions inventory, car transportation in the city accounts for 70% of total greenhouse gas emissions.
The Green Steps action plan offers many ways to further increase the proportion of eco-friendly transportation, such as ensuring enough bike racks and changing facilities, providing staff access to electric bikes or electric cars for work-related travel, offering transportation agreements, public transport tickets, and encouraging staff and visitors to adopt more sustainable transport methods.
During the European Mobility Week in September, people are encouraged to use eco-friendly modes of travel.
Biking and walking
Reykjavík City aims to increase the proportion of eco-friendly trips for its operations annually. Employers have various tools and incentives to encourage increased biking and walking for employees' work-related errands. Staff should have access to electric or conventional bikes for shorter work-related trips and personal errands, if necessary. However, if employees bike to work, they are allowed to use workplace vehicles for necessary personal errands.
Reykjavík City offers its staff the opportunity to sign a transportation agreement, which is a grant for employees who use active or eco-friendly transportation to and from work at least four times a week. The facilities for biking and walking employees should be exemplary. Bike parking should be available at workplaces along with facilities for employees to change clothes.
Biking to Work is a health and motivation project by the public sports department of the National Olympic and Sports Association of Iceland. The main goal of the campaign is to highlight biking as a healthy, environmentally friendly, and cost-effective mode of transportation. Walking trips to and from the bus can also count as one's contribution to the Biking to Work competition.
On the energy conservation website, vistorka.is, you can check how long it takes to bike or walk to work. It's often much shorter than many people think.
Strætó public transport
The Strætó website contains all the essential information about routes and fares. It's ideal to post maps in the break room and on the internal web, showing routes to the workplace. The Green Steps program also includes making route maps of Strætó visible to visitors, so they can easily understand which buses stop nearby. An institution can greatly simplify access to Strætó by purchasing multiple-ride cards and keeping them available for employees who need them. Employees should be informed of the possibility to take their bicycles on Strætó or combine transportation methods in other ways. Since electric scooters are also often located at stops, it would be easy to combine eco-friendly modes of travel like scooters and Strætó to get to and from work.
Taxis
When ordering a taxi for staff, it's necessary to request an eco-friendly car. It can be noted in the account transactions with the taxi company that a green vehicle should always be sent if available whenever a taxi is ordered on behalf of the institution. The City's institutions' demand for clean energy cars has increased, and accordingly, the supply of electric, methane, or hydrogen-powered rental cars also grows. Obtaining an eco-friendly car when requested has therefore become a minor issue now.
Eco-driving
If using a car during work hours is unavoidable, Green Steps actions ensure the vehicle is electric or methane-powered and that the driver is familiar with eco-driving practices. The aim of eco-driving is more economical and environmentally friendly driving. It is good to get used to driving at a constant speed, as constantly braking and accelerating contributes more to pollution. The most energy is used when the car accelerates from nearly a standstill. Furthermore, traffic lights are timed so that drivers can always catch the green light if they do not exceed a steady speed of 50-60km/h.
By adopting eco-driving, one can significantly reduce the need for car maintenance, emissions, and fuel consumption, and drivers will become more aware of their driving style. The benefits include greater savings, less pollution, increased safety, and often time savings through eco-driving. Many driving instructors and schools offer courses in eco-driving.
Long distance travel
Consider offsetting the carbon footprint of flights due to work-related travel. Carbon offsetting aims at capturing carbon in vegetation and soil to reduce the concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere. It's also good to minimize layovers in flights and best to choose flights that go directly to the destination. Where train travel is available, it should be chosen due to lower environmental impact, but if a rental car is selected, an eco-friendly car should be preferred whenever possible. Long trips by employees should always be planned to minimize environmental impacts both in the air and on the ground. In the green accounting of Green Steps, you can find guidelines on how to calculate emissions from flights.