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Heartbeat: It’s top prize for environmentally friendly travel plan

January 7, 2021

The Trust has scooped a top award for its environmentally-friendly travel plan which is working to reduce the number of staff driving to work.

We won the ‘contribution to sustainable travel by an organisation’ gong, for our work around introducing more cycle lanes, cycle parking, implementing a car share scheme with Faxi, and installing electric vehicle charging points.

The Trust was recognised in the Modeshift National Sustainable Travel Awards, which took place virtually. Earlier this year, we achieved Bronze accreditation from Modeshift for the travel plans.

Fran Silcocks, Sustainability Officer, who contributed to the travel plan, said: “We are honoured and extremely pleased to be recognised in this way for the work we are doing around sustainability. We have been going over and above in our efforts to reduce driving to our sites and have put in place several environmentally friendly initiatives.

“We have significantly more electric vehicle charging points being installed shortly and are working with local public transport providers to offer discounted travel for our staff.

“By introducing the travel plan, the Trust demonstrates our commitment to forming a greener and more sustainable workplace. A big part of our goal is looking at the way staff travel and making it easier and better for people to choose walking, cycling, public transport, low emission vehicles or car sharing rather than travelling individually by car.

“As a health care provider, we have a duty of care to advocate improvements in air quality and are committed to positively contributing towards this. We look forward to working with our local authorities to improve air quality.”

The Trust’s travel plan sets out objectives to reduce the dependence of staff on travel by private car, including:

  • Promote sustainable and active modes of travel
  • Advocate means of travel that are beneficial to the health of those working at or visiting the site
  • Minimise car travel in the area surrounding the site, cutting down on associated costs (including environmental, financial and health)
  • Reduce car parking pressures