The APTA reports that the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21), a federal law amended in 1998, provides tax-free benefits for employers and employees who take advantage of public transportation or van pooling options. Employers can provide up to $115 (as of January 2008) in monthly stipends or cash back to employees who choose this mode of transport. Employers can deduct the cost from their taxes and don’t have to pay payroll taxes on the stipend. In addition, employees don’t have to pay income tax on this benefit. The APTA cites several additional benefits: no parking or gas expense; reduced emissions and pollution in the community; reduced traffic congestion; and a relaxing commute where riders can rest, read, or do paperwork instead of facing a stressful drive during rush hour.

All federal government employees in the Washington, D.C., metro area are eligible for this benefit, and employees of many federal agencies around the country are, too. The stipend tax benefit is available to private businesses and nonprofits as well as government agencies; however, self-employed individuals, sole proprietors, and independent contractors are not eligible.

Clif Bar, a privately-owned company with about 200 employees based in Berkeley, California, implemented a program called Cool Commute to encourage employees to make eco-friendly transit choices. Employees earn points if they carpool, walk, bike, or take public transportation to work. They can then trade these points for public transit vouchers or gift cards to eco-friendly stores such as Whole Foods. Employees can also choose to apply their points to support environmental causes or to buy carbon offsets.

Several existing electronic carpool matching programs are available to businesses and individuals. Most are free, and some provide additional services to business participants. Here are a few; you can easily find more with an Internet search for carpooling:

Another popular way to cut down on driving expense and emissions is to use cars on a temporary basis instead of owning one. This way, drivers have the convenience of a car when they really need it.

Zipcar is a member-based organization with cars in selected cities. It is similar to car rental agencies, except they have conveniently located cars around the country that you can access with their pre-programmed plastic membership card. If you need a car for a trip, you check their website to locate the nearest car, reserve it, pick it up, and go. The card unlocks the car and starts the ignition. Zipcar says each car in their international fleet has the potential to take 15 cars off the road and that users save an average of $5,000 per year. The agency also has a special program for businesses, Z2B, which offers reduced rates to business customers (see Appendix B).

For a quick ride, you might choose a hybrid taxi service. Yellow cabs in New York City are converting to hybrid vehicles, and OzoCar in New York City and the northeast region provides an all-hybrid fleet of Toyota Prius and Lexus cars plus free wireless; they even include a laptop in the backseat for your use. PlanetTran provides similar hybrid car services in the greater Boston area and San Francisco. It also provides corporate discounts, specialized accounting services, and environmental impact analysis assistance. For contact information, see Appendix B.

Many companies are providing incentives to employees to switch to hybrid vehicles, according to www.hybridcars.com. Clif Bar rewards its employees with a $5,000 bonus if they buy hybrid cars or use 100 percent biodiesel (B100) fuel for their cars. Software firm Hyperion also offers $5,000 to employees who make the switch, part of a $1 million company-wide incentive program. Bank of America offers a similar $3,000 incentive to employees. Google also awards $5,000 to employees who buy qualified high-efficiency vehicles and a $2,500 contribution toward leased vehicles. Timberland offers a $3,000 bonus to long-term employees who purchase hybrid cars, and Patagonia offers $2,000 or helps employees retrofit their diesel vehicles to use biodiesel.

Many companies, organizations, cities, and states offer incentives such as free parking, use of high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes, and rebates to those who buy and use hybrid and alternative fuel vehicles. A few examples:

For an updated list of regional incentives, visit www.hybridcars.com.

Employees who work on a computer are in an excellent position to work from home a day or so a week or even all the time. Some employees thrive on the group atmosphere of being at work, and others work best under supervision. However, some people are self-directed or self-disciplined enough to get the work done on their own and can realize many personal benefits from the telecommuting arrangement. Employees save time by losing the daily commute, which of course means saving money on fuel and eliminating emissions. They save money on work clothes and meals away from home during the workday, too. Your company might want to experiment with telecommuting as an option for the right people and the right jobs.

Consider that having employees work from home could reduce your costs of running an office, which means saving money on electricity and reducing emissions. Reduced costs mean added savings and increased profits.

In addition to the daily commute to work, businesses can also make an impact on their environmental footprint by taking a look at business-related travel. Business trips for meetings, conferences, and presentations can represent a significant expenditure of time, money, energy, and emissions. Finding ways to green up business travel is beneficial to the planet as well as to your bottom line.

Begin by taking a closer look at individual trips, and consider whether sending staff to distant locales is really necessary. Measure the cost benefit of potential sales and networking using actual sales results from similar previous trips against the cost of making the trip; don’t forget to factor in the environmental costs of energy and emissions expended. You might be able to reduce your carbon footprint—and your travel expense—simply by being more judicious about the value of the trip. Perhaps you can connect with your colleagues and customers in other ways besides actual face-to-face contact—at least sometimes.

Teleconferencing has become increasingly popular and effective with the advent of the Internet. I’m a member of a nonprofit organization, the American Society of Journalists and Authors, which has members throughout the country. Our 12-member board meets monthly via phone. Our executive director sends us dialing instructions and a code, which enables us all to join a party line for our two-hour meeting. We meet in person just twice each year at an expense of about $10,000 for the organization, which covers our flights and lodging for the trips.

Some such services are free and provide a toll-free number for user access, others charge a fee for enhanced services (such as recording), and some require a longdistance charge to individual callers. We use our voice over Internet protocol (VOIP) phones (such as Vonage or Skype) or cell phones to reduce the cost—because most of us have unlimited minute plans with these providers, we don’t have to pay anything extra for a two-hour call. There are even free and low-cost video conferencing services available that are easy to use. Teleconferencing is much more cost-effective for our small nonprofit than meeting in person and serves our needs perfectly well. It could be just as much a cost-saver for your business as well. Of course, when you’re not traveling, you’re also saving energy and reducing emissions, so chalk up another one for your sustainability plans.

The following are some teleconference providers:

For those events that do require your presence or the presence of your staff at an out-of-town event, improve your sustainability by purchasing travel offsets to help counterbalance the emissions produced by the trip. Companies like NativeEnergy provide calculators to help you determine the energy and emission cost of your trip. You then pay them an amount of money determined by their calculator, which they invest in alternative energy research and providers to produce the same amount of energy without emissions. In this way, the energy you’re using today can help build the alternative energy infrastructure that will provide a better solution in the future.

NativeEnergy helps support wind farms and methane digesters, which provide clean electricity with no carbon emissions. It works with businesses large and small to develop customized offset programs for their businesses and travel needs that help companies reduce their carbon footprint and become more sustainable. Find the NativeEnergy travel calculator and contact information in Appendix B.

As with your other business partnerships, if you can work with companies who have made a commitment to improve their sustainability, you can help improve your own sustainability as well. Virgin Airlines has proven to be a leader in finding ways to reduce the heavy carbon footprint of not just its own planes but for air travel across the board as well. Working as a sustainable business, the company applies many familiar principles to its operations, such as becoming paperless and serving Fair Trade teas and coffees. The airline posts its 29-step plan for sustainability online.

Virgin is working with Boeing to develop more sustainable airplanes. Company owner Richard Branson has pledged to invest in the development of biofuels or alternative fuels that will work in planes, and his company has proven that planes can run on such fuels with a demonstration flight in February 2008. Branson also ponied up a $25 million incentive prize to the person or firm who can develop technology to remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. Announced in February 2007, the contest closes in February 2010. See Appendix B for contact information for Virgin Airlines and the Virgin Earth Project.

Continental Airlines was the first North American airline to use biofuel in March 2008. Continental, like many other airlines, works to conserve fuel with slower flights and helps customers offset their travel emissions online. Continental reports that it has reduced its CO₂ emissions by 35 percent in the past decade and other greenhouse gases by as much as 75 percent. Also like many airlines, the company practices recycling with its in-flight service.

When planning your next business trip, check to see whether the carrier you’re considering is making strides toward sustainability by going to its website and asking questions about emissions, offsets, fuel, and other sustainability issues.

Although train travel is not as accessible or as attractive in the United States as it has been in Europe for more than a century, it is gaining a bit in popularity as gas prices rise. At the same time, railway operators are greening up their lines by improving pollutant emissions with the use of new, cleaner diesel fuel and biodiesel. If you can afford the extra time to travel by train, you might consider it as a way to reduce the emissions and energy costs of your travel.

If you’re planning to rent a car for travel, ask if a hybrid vehicle is available. Many companies do provide at least a few for their fleet, and you’ll save money on gas while reducing the emissions.

Also if you or your company has joined Zipcar, you might find that using the Zipcar option at your destination is preferable to renting a car.

After you’ve reached your destination, consider staying in a green hotel to help support other businesses making a difference to the planet and to reduce your own travel footprint. Many hotel chains are adopting greener policies, such as increasing recycling, using energy-efficient heating and cooling systems, dispensing soaps in bulk instead of single-use disposable bottles, and implementing the linen reuse program, which is saving thousands of gallons of water and reducing the energy needed to dry loads of towels daily by an estimated 5 percent. See Appendix B for help finding green hotels.

Flextime allows employees to adjust their time at the office to accommodate their schedules, their families, and their commute. Being flexible with the time clock gives employees the chance to bypass rush hour by arriving and leaving work earlier or later in the day. By staying off the road during the most congested hours, they can reduce their commute time and be available to their children before and after school.

In 2008, many cities and companies began switching to a four-day workweek and closing the office one day a week. Utah became the first state to move to a mandatory four-day workweek for its 17,000 state employees in August 2008. The result saves energy used by the offices with attendant reduced emissions, a reduction of fuel and emissions spent getting employees to work, and a reduction of traffic congestion and pollution. Utah projects a savings of $3 million in utility costs in its first year.

Many four-day programs involve 10-hour workdays which some employees and businesses appreciate but others find difficult because they can be tiring and disruptive to family life. Some professions can suffer from tired technicians whose skills can be compromised by the extension of the workday, so the move may not be appropriate for certain jobs where safety for workers or customers is a risk.

Other companies, such as Green America, are moving instead to a four-day, 32-hour workweek, thus avoiding the exhaustion factor and day-care difficulties for employees. Proponents of this plan point to several benefits. It reduces absenteeism, increases productivity, and increases employee satisfaction, thus reducing staff turnover.

Aaron Newton, author of A Nation of Farmers: Defeating the Food Crisis on American Soil (New Society Publishers, 2009) and a sustainable land use planner, makes a strong case for moving toward a shorter workweek: “The idea of a 40 hour workweek (5 days × 8 hours) is based on nothing more than an idea put forth by the federal government almost 70 years ago. This was certainly an improvement in the lives of many Americans who were at the time forced to work 10-plus hours a day, sometimes 6 days of the week, but today it’s time for another change to a shorter workweek.”

Those who are unable to get their work done during the shortened week have the option of using their three-day weekend to catch up. But one of the greatest benefits is the added time employees have for themselves and their families. More time to relax bolsters creativity and helps parents provide personal care for their children.