Climate-damaging emissions from business travel

A new approach is required throughout our society – away from car travel and towards an individualized blend of "door-to-door" mobility that's adapted to each specific journey, consisting of bus, train, car sharing or rental bike, preferably digitally networked.

We can all make a difference – each one of us (Why not enjoy a business trip by rail instead of sitting in a traffic jam?), the company (Why not create incentives for executives to forego their company cars?) and the political system, which could, for example, expand railway lines or provide tax incentives for eco-friendly transport.

VAUDE is also taking a courageous and consistent approach to this issue. We want to reduce our emissions originating from employee mobility by another 25 % by 2024 compared with 2019.

To accomplish this, we have expanded our existing travel guidelines into a comprehensive and even more consistent mobility policy for all VAUDE employees.

Reducing travel not only lowers emissions, it also cuts costs and saves time. The Corona pandemic has provided a huge digitalization boost. At VAUDE, we were already well positioned to be able to work from home. Web and video conferencing can save many a trip these days, but when the company grows – more employees, more products, more production, more customers, etc. – reducing business travel is truly difficult.

Furthermore, the scarcity of public transport between most VAUDE employee homes and our (otherwise beautiful) rural location within Germany means that finding the right mix of climate protection, time expenditure and costs for business travel remains a special challenge.

VAUDE employees choose travel that is as environmentally friendly as possible with the goal of achieving the best possible balance between travel time, costs and emissions.

The following priority applies when selecting the means of transport:

1. Public transport / train / long-distance bus
2. Carpool (company car, pool car, rental car)
3. Air travel

VAUDE uses a company account with Deutsche Bahn for all business rail travel. It offers many advantages for VAUDE, such as a corporate customer discount, extended return periods for unused tickets, including city tickets at the departure and destination points, and various organizational benefits such as an overview of all rail travel. VAUDE employees who travel frequently by rail receive a Bahncard Business.

Bahn-Business customers travel with 100 % green electricity.

At VAUDE, public transport is our first choice for travelling from the destination train station to an event location. If the final destination is within the city limits, it is usually easy to reach by local public transport.

If the destination is outside the city center, VAUDE employees have the choice of various car sharing providers (more information on this is available from the Bundesverband Carsharing).

Rental bikes or rental e-bikes can be used for short distances.

In many cities the ride-pooling taxi service provider Clevershuttle offers its services. This service allows different passengers to share a taxi for combined rides that are cost-effective and environmentally friendly – a “carpool taxi” as it were.

VAUDE employees can take a standard taxi if all other options are unavailable or if several of them are travelling together. The maximum distance travelled in a taxi may not exceed 30 kilometers.

Car-pooling with several people, whether with a company car, pool vehicle or rental car, is permitted if the journey by train or bus means at least 30 % extra time and additional costs of at least 30 %.

Trips of 400 kilometers or more may not be made by car unless there are serious reasons for doing so, such as transporting large loads or several consecutive appointments at different locations that are difficult or impossible to reach by train.

When calculating travel times, the time required to get from door-to-door, (from the point of departure to the destination) always applies to all means of transport.

A flat rate of 20 % is added to the estimated travel time by car indicated by navigation systems / route planners for breaks, traffic jams, refuelling, searching for a parking space etc.

Appointments must be scheduled in such a way that they can take place on the same route. Route planners help to find the optimal route for several destinations along the way.

VAUDE employees do not generally fly distances of less than 600 kilometers and not within Germany, Switzerland or Austria.

Otherwise, flights are permitted if the additional time required and the additional costs of all other travel options are at least 50 % higher than other modes of travel.

The door-to-door rule also applies here – the respective times for arrival and departure at the airport, transfer to the terminal, check-in, waiting and buffer times must be added to the actual flight time.

When calculating the costs of flights within Europe, an additional flat rate of 5 euros per 100 kilometers distance must be added to the actual flight costs for climate compensation.

Travel to the airport is by train, long-distance bus, car sharing or carpool.

We explain how we are making our company fleet more environmentally friendly here

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