Car sharing contributes to Next PLC’s challenging CSR targets and policies

High street retailer Next is promoting employee car sharing at its Leicester sites as part of the company’s ongoing commitment to sustainable travel for employees.

As part of maintaining a competitive and thorough corporate social responsibility strategy, Next promotes all forms of sustainable travel to staff, including walking, cycling and sharing, as well as offering free charging points for electric and hybrid vehicles. In 2017, such promotion will be rolled out to stores and warehouses country-wide.

With 4,200 staff working shift patterns across a 24/7 period between Next’s Head Offices and it’s other Leicester sites, car sharing has become its most popular mode of sustainable travel. Between the members sharing, 3.5 million miles are taken off of the roads every year, and £900,000 saved in petrol costs. Next’s car sharers save 1,200 tonnes of CO2 annually – and this figure is growing all the time as more get involved.

Leading by example to promote their Liftshare scheme, Next uses emails, posters, and travel clinics to inform staff of the benefits of car sharing. In 2010, the company introduced a daily travel incentive voucher at the value of £1 a day. In 2015, the value was increased to £2, and during a period of office construction, temporarily to £5. Even when the rate was lowered after a short period back to £2, those car sharing continued to do so – proving that staff are truly engaged and understanding of the benefits of shared travel!

The company already has 381 teams of people regularly sharing cars to work – most with 3 or more people in the car, for optimum efficiency.

Sarah Mcalinden, Sustainable Travel Champion for Next, said “Continuous promotion of the Next Liftshare scheme has been extremely successful in recruiting new users, with membership growing by more than six times over since we started out! As a company based in a fairly rural area, not served overly by public transport options, it’s important that we offer as many options to staff as we can. Next remain committed to sturdy CSR targets and policies, and our Liftshare scheme forms just a small part of this – but with big results.”

If you’d like more information on introducing a Liftshare scheme for your business, or think personalised travel planning or car sharing could work for your organisation, get in touch with our Business Team.