Last week, the first training session “Aspiring to Carbon Neutrality through Mobility Management” took place with Luxmobility, Carbone 4, EIT Urban Mobility, and IMS. We chose to invite our tenants to participate with us.
Here are the key takeaways and insights we gained from it
Key figures:
The average carbon footprint of a Luxembourger is 16 tons of CO2 per year … while the target threshold is ideally 2 tons of CO2 per year.
Mobility accounts for 17% of Luxembourg’s carbon footprint.
Reducing car size can lead to 60% emission savings
Switching from combustion to electric can reduce emissions by up to 70% (including manufacturing)
Taking the train means 95% fewer emissions than driving!
In Luxembourg, bicycle use has increased from 2% to 5% in 2 years.
The most important thing is action
Climate change is here, and we must adapt by minimizing our impact and the impact of our activities on our resources.
It’s important to understand that finding fault and blaming neighbors for inaction does nothing to address the issue: +5° means physical risks for humans and their habitats (i.e., us!) and transition risks (political, tax, regulatory, etc.).
The carbon footprint is merely an indicator of dependence. It serves to measure our dependence on elements and is an integral part of the first phase of action:
1 / Measure! You cannot act on something you don’t know.
2 / Engage by involving all internal and external stakeholders of the company. Especially management: management support is needed to make things happen.
3 / Act: concrete and measurable actions to truly make a positive impact. For example:
Before planting more trees, we must first stop cutting them down. It seems simple, but that’s the whole challenge. Contribution is much more powerful than compensation! explains Christina Stuart from Carbone 4
And in terms of mobility?
Mobility must be adapted to our uses, explains Patrick Van Egmond; sometimes we just go to the office and come back, and sometimes we need to do groceries, drop off children, etc., which complicates the use of car alternatives.
What should also be noted is that carpooling, taking public transport, or cycling, even one day a week, has a significant impact!
The average home-to-work carbon footprint in Luxembourg is 1710 kgCO2e/person/year; it drops to 1420 if carpooling increases from 1.2 to 1.6 people per vehicle!
That’s why a mobility plan is useful for companies. It helps identify possible synergies, optimize individual options, and provide ideas to employees and HR for optimizing the mobility budget beyond simple car leasing.
The Mobility Fresco is a good tool for raising awareness and provides the foundations and levers for action:
- Use cars responsibly (for example, a family car pollutes almost 3 times less than an SUV!)
- Change mode of transport (the train is 95% cleaner than a car)
- Travel shorter distances (a Paris-New York trip is 2 tons of CO2, which is our entire ideal annual quota)
- Travel less often
Campus Contern’s mobility benefits
This training was also an opportunity to see that many initiatives in our offices were moving in the right direction:
- The shuttle connecting the station to the office,
- Car sharing,
- Bicycle parking
- The 128 charging stations
- Carpooling
All these elements enable more sustainable mobility options. Our mobility plan is currently being developed, and we will see what else we can implement to do our best for our community.
Many thanks to our tenants for their participation and to the various speakers.
Resources:
Luxmobility for access to this training https://luxmobility.eu/
EIT Urban Mobility provides training and free explanatory videos on https://urbanmobilitycourses.eu/ (“Applied” courses are paid because they are personalized, but everything else is freely accessible 😊)