How do you make sustainable choices in your mobility policy? And what dilemmas do you face in doing so? This is what board member Ronald Wuijster talks about in an interview on the site of Anders Reizen.
Anders Reizen is a coalition of over seventy large organizations with a common ambition: to halve CO2 emissions from business travel by 2030 (compared to 2016). This includes both commuting and business (air)travel. The organizations exchange knowledge among themselves for a more sustainable, cheaper and healthier mobility policy.
In an interview on Andersreizen.nl, Ronald Wuijster explains that sustainability has always been an integral part of APG's investment policy. Yet about five years ago, they had to find that APG itself was not meeting the sustainability requirements they set for their investments. Partly due to the corona pandemic – in which working from home and consulting via Teams was the norm – and with Anders Reizen as one of the sources of inspiration, they are now catching up.
Stricter travel policy
APG made several changes to its operations. As an example, Ronald Wuijster cites the tightening of travel and parking policies. "We had a kind of travelling circus before 2020. On the days when the board of directors met in Heerlen, a large part of the staff went with us to Heerlen. Later in the week, much of Heerlen came back to Amsterdam for meetings. In corona time, we saw that it can be done differently. And now we no longer travel back and forth every week and much of it also goes through Teams. You make huge gains from that."
Employees are now incentivized to travel more via public transit, take their bikes or walk. "The highest mileage allowance is for walking or biking (23 cents)." Employees on a lease have to choose between an all-electric car or a travel budget.
More complex
For international business travel, steering for sustainability is more complex, he says. "We can't control everything remotely, so we have to travel by air to assess our investments." For international travel, the train is preferred and flying is only allowed if the travel time exceeds five hours. With each trip, consideration is given to its necessity and whether a more sustainable alternative, such as meeting via Teams, is also possible.
Read the full interview (in Dutch) on Andersreizen.nl