What is employee commuting?
Employee commuting refers to the travel your employees make between their homes and regular workplaces. It includes office-based, hybrid, and remote working arrangements, and is classified under Scope 3.7 (Employee Commuting) of the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol.
What you’ll need to get started
To calculate employee commuting emissions, you’ll need:
Workplace addresses (entered in your Business Profile page)
Number of employees commuting to each location
Average percentage of time employees worked at each location during the selected quarter
Since employee commuting isn’t linked to spend data, the process is the same whether your accounting platform is connected or not.
Choosing the right option
There are a number of possible scenarios when completing this module. Follow the steps that best describes your situation:
1. Your business has commuting employees and can provide data
Select the workplace address, then enter the number of full-time equivalent (FTE) employees, and the average percentage of time they worked at that office location during the selected quarter.
The percentage of time worked at the address should be averaged across all employees at that location for this period. The remainder is calculated as remote working emissions.
The average percentage of working days in a year is calculated by removing a country’s public holidays, weekend days and minimum leave entitlement per year from the total number of days in the year.
To add details for another workplace location, select Add details for another address.
If an address isn’t listed, add it in your Business Profile.
If any employees work on a fully remote basis, add an entry for Remote location and enter the number of employees.
2. Your business has employee commuting but no data is available
If you know employees commuted to work but don’t have records of where, how often, or how many employees, select “I cannot provide any details.”
The module will be marked as complete, but your footprint will be created with a gap. You can amend this later if you are able to find a record of this data or to make an estimation of employee working patterns for historic periods.
Tracking employee commuting
If you’re unsure how to gather commuting data, here are some reliable sources:
Time Tracking Systems
These can differentiate between remote and in-office logins, helping you measure attendance.Access Control Data
Systems like keycards or biometric scanners can show how often employees entered the workplace.Employee Surveys
Ask employees how many days they typically work in the office versus remotely.
Find out more:
See Section 6.2 of our Carbon Reduction Actions Guide