Flexible Working Initiative to Reduce CO2 Emissions

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28 May 2021

The Global Marine Group is implementing a flexible working initiative to reduce CO2 emissions by 233.11 tonnes annually.

The programme will allow employees worldwide to have more control over their work-life balance and is intended to lead to a massive positive impact on the business’ CO2 output. 

Somewhat surprisingly, research from winter 2020 predicted that office closures wouldn't lead to the decline in emissions that might be expected. Fewer people were commuting, but research showed home workers were taking more frequent drives to reach facilities away from homes in rural areas, where they might have had short journeys from their city workplace to meet these same requirements.

However, Global Marine Group has over 900 employees based across the world and multiple time zones. This includes employees in offices, vessels, depots and offshore environments, all of which require a significant amount of energy to power increasing the business’ overall CO2 output. 

The organisation's new flexible working guidelines are set to address this.

GMG Evolution

GMG Evolution is a working programme that encourages remote working for their employees across the organisation. It is entirely optional, but employees will now be able to determine how much time they spend in the office compared to their home, giving them more power over how they work.

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent restrictions forced GMG to adapt its working practices over the past year, in order to maintain their growth trajectory. Like so many others, they invested in remote working at the start of the pandemic to ensure there was little to no disruption for their staff or customers. 

This not only helped establish a more flexible working pattern for employees but also decreased GMG’s CO2 footprint dramatically. The GMG Evolution scheme is also a commitment to ensure that the CO2 reduction they have seen will be sustainable.

Ian Douglas, CEO of Global Marine Group commented on why now was a perfect time to introduce such a scheme, “As an organisation there’s a lot we are working on to improve, streamline and also reduce carbon emissions for our onshore and offshore operations which requires smart engineering, innovative solutions and buy-in from our customers. A key example of that is our recently launched CWind Pioneer, a hybrid surface effect ship (SES) which sees up to 50% fuel savings over a conventional CTV, saving over 110 tonnes of CO2 per year by comparison for a single vessel.” 

He continued, “But when the pandemic forced GMG to work remotely as a collective and therefore heavily reduce the everyday emissions that so many of us omit, it was a eureka moment enabling us to reduce yet another stream of our organisational carbon footprint.” 

Reducing the Commute 

By cutting down office energy bills and lengthy commutes for employees, GMG is playing their part in the fight against climate change.

The average UK commute by car is 23 miles per day. GMG has 315 office-based employees in the UK. In the last 12 months, GMG has saved 1,702,575 commuter miles on UK roads by facilitating teams to work from home. This equates to 388.52 tonnes of CO2 not being released into the atmosphere since the first lockdown began.

Given the flexible, hybrid approach that is going to be offered to all going forward, this will mean less energy, heating and lighting within offices, and may also reduce commuter miles by on average 60 per cent per person – equating to a huge annual saving of 233.11 tonnes of CO2 emissions.  

Picture: a photograph of a person walking along a train platform

Article written by Ella Tansley | Published 28 May 2021

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