Employee Commuting
We're focused on creating solutions to get more REI employees out of single occupancy vehicles. Getting our employees to work in carpools, van shares, by public transportation or human-powered transportation (bicycling or walking) are significant efforts to reduce GHG emissions.
REI Employee Commuting (Tons CO2)
Highlights
Our stores, distribution centers and headquarters in Kent, Wash. — are equipped with bicycle storage and showers so that employees can make bicycling to work a viable choice. At our headquarters, we have achieved a single occupancy vehicle rate of 58 percent.
In 2007 we began a formal effort to reduce the impacts of commuting and created a full-time position to coordinate this program. We also received a grant from the Washington State Department of Transportation for nearly $100,000 to help us test ways to reduce GHGs from commuting in our western Washington locations. Although most REI employees work in our retail stores, our efforts started in Kent because our headquarters is the largest concentration of employees in one location.
Our commuting reduction efforts in Kent include a pilot program to allow employees to adopt flexible work schedules and options such as telecommuting. We also hired an employee programs specialist that supports the development of commuting options, and other human resources efforts, such as discount programs and work/life balance efforts, to enhance employee engagement at REI.
Challenges
While on paper it appears GHGs generated through employee commuting decreased from about 20,000 tons of CO2 in 2006 down to 17,130 tons in 2007, this is attributed to a more accurate method of counting versus significant changes in commuting methods. This means that we overestimated our GHG emissions from employee commuting in 2006. Because of factors like business growth and hiring new employees, we actually increased our greenhouse gas emissions in this category in 2007.
Looking Forward
We will better measure commuting impacts, especially in our retail stores, and introduce additional programs to reduce the barriers and increase participation in non-single occupancy vehicle commuting.
Methodology
We count the GHG emissions generated by our employees' commuting patterns because it is a significant part of our GHG impact and a challenge we need to address.
In 2007, REI used two methods to compute the CO2 impact of employee commuting. We conducted a detailed employee survey about commuting habits at three locations: our headquarters in Kent, Wash., Seattle flagship store, and Sumner, Wash., distribution center. The survey revealed the actual miles traveled, the type of transportation (i.e., single occupancy vehicle, bus, bike or train), and the number of days employees are using each commuting method. Using modeling techniques, we estimated the commuting patterns for our other facilities based on employee location and transit opportunities, and compared this data to survey results from the three surveyed Washington locations. By doing this, we were able to estimate our companywide impacts.
In 2006 we were more conservative in our modeling, and we believe that our modeling was more accurate in 2007 from the broadening of our survey beyond our headquarters campus. This methodology improvement is why we report a reduction in our carbon impact from the 2006 level, despite our growth in the core number of employees commuting.
