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By viv, 18 February, 2011 10:31 am

Last month in our blog we told you about ways2work, a great resource to find out what organisations are doing to reduce the negative impacts of their work-related travel.  Some of your companies may already be leading the way in reducing impacts of travel to work so you might be interested in the BITC ways2work Award, a national award built on the successful foundations laid by last year’s BITC/NBTN Regional Sustainable Travel Award.

BITC Awards for Excellence are the most credible, influential and well established National Awards for Responsible Business, independently assessed by industry peers. The aim of the ways2work Award is to identify inspiring examples of innovation and action by organisations reducing the impacts of how they work and travel in relation to their work and through this to reward best practice and inspire others to take action.

The ways2work award reflects the Department for Transport’s new dual focus on sustainable travel and alternatives to travel. The award is aimed at companies that can evidence the benefits of their interventions and ideas that reduce the impacts of ONE OR BOTH of the following:

• How their employees travel in relation to their work. This covers commuting and/or business travel and what they are doing to reduce car use, and flights, and encourage more sustainable and active forms of transport such as carsharing, using public transport, cycling and walking. Also, what they are doing to encourage more fuel efficient driving.

and/or

• How their employees work. This covers policies and technologies that facilitate reduced commuting and /or business travel, including flexible working policies (which for example facilitate off-peak travel amongst many other things) or supporting homeworking through the provision of good technology and IT systems. The technology could be anything  from telephone conferencing to telepresence and everything in between!

ways2work are interested in what companies are doing, why and how. They would also like to hear about the benefits of these actions such as reduced costs, emissions, absence and  improved productivity, employee well being, work/life balance and community relationships. Find out more about the ways2work Award and, if you are interested, there’s just over 2 weeks left to submit the applications, deadline Friday 4 March.

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By viv, 25 January, 2011 9:43 am

We’ve been finding out about ways2work, a great resource to find out what organisations are doing to reduce the negative impacts of their work-related travel. We thought it might help with generating ideas for the ‘How can we improve transport in Britain? GeoVation Challenge.

ways2work helps you promote sustainable travel and flexible working

ways2work is a new online tool to promote sustainable travel and encourage flexible working. It is the latest joint initiative from the National Business Travel Network (NBTN) and Business in the Community (BITC) and represents a key output of this collaboration.

ways2work has been developed for business by business to increase efficiency through better ways of working and travelling. Its aim is to provide practical guidance in promoting sustainable travel and flexible working in companies as a strategic part of a business improvement programme.

This unique resource draws on the collective experience and expertise of the Sustainable Travel Steering Group – RWE npower (chair), Accenture, Boots UK, BSkyB, BT, Capgemini, E.ON, FirstGroup, GlaxoSmithKline, Highways Agency, Microsoft, Nationwide, NATS and The Wellcome Trust – with support from NBTN and BITC’s Business Action for Working Well campaign.

ways2work includes practical advice on how to create and successfully run sustainable travel initiatives and flexible working programmes. More importantly, it provides a comprehensive list of business, environment and health benefits achieved by other organisations. These are designed to help practitioners make a good business case when advocating for change in their organisations.

NBTN’s Programme Director, Heather McInroy, added: “We hope that companies will use ways2work to help their employees find better ways to work and travel, by providing the infrastructure, work and technology options needed to minimise their environmental impacts and maximise their health and wellbeing on the journey to better business”.

The concept of ways2work synthesizes two parallel themes of travelling more sustainably and travelling less in relation to our work. It has been designed to be used by anyone with an interest in business efficiency, employee physical and psychological health and responsible business practice.

Finally, the resource is the main place to find out what other organisations are doing to reduce the negative impacts of their work-related travel.

To find out more or access the list of case studies visit the ways2work website.