How an efficient Cycle to Work scheme can reduce business carbon emissions and hit wider ESG targets

With regulations tightening across the UK and growing expectations from supply chains, organisations are under increasing pressure to understand and act on their wider Scope 3 carbon emissions. At the same time, investors, funders, accreditation bodies and future talent are all looking for clear, credible progress against social and governance goals, and organisations themselves are keen to ensure their workforce remain healthy and work effectively.

How does commuting affect business carbon emissions?

The carbon emissions of any organisation are grouped into three categories, known as Scope 1, 2 and 3:

Scope 1 emissions are produced directly from gas heating, company-owned fossil-fuelled vehicles, refrigerant or anaesthetic gas use.

Scope 2 emissions are generated through the purchase of electricity, steam and heat, or the use of EVs.

Scope 3 emissions are the indirect emissions linked to an organisation. This includes things like waste, recycling, purchases of goods, business travel and employee commuting, typically making up 70–90% of a company’s total carbon footprint[i].

The Greenhouse Gas Protocol (GHG Protocol) splits Scope 3 emissions into 15 categories, one of those being Employee Commuting.

Employee commuting

Employee commuting can make up around 10-30% of an organisation’s total emissions.

Even though commuting contributes such a significant  share, many organisations do not measure it properly or take action to reduce it. For workplace-based organisations, commuting is often the biggest area where simple changes to policies can make a real difference.

Why is commuting one of the hardest Scope 3 categories to reduce?

Employers often find it hard to reduce commuting emissions because they do not directly control the activity. Employees choose how and from where they travel to work, which can be shaped by where they live, their family life or local transport infrastructure rather than company policy.

A few specific reasons it’s tougher than other Scope 3 categories:

• No direct control.Unlike purchased goods and services, where you can switch suppliers, or business travel, where employers can mandate rail over flights, employers cannot directly control where people live or how they travel to work.

• It’s deeply habitual. Commuting decisions are made once and repeated daily. Shifting behaviour requires both the right alternative and the right incentive to break habits.

• It can be difficult to see what is working. Commuting data usually comes from staff surveys, and the year-on-year noise in those responses can mask genuine reductions. This makes it difficult to understand which interventions actually pay off.

 

However, it is an area which an employer can influence, particularly if their interventions focus on making low-carbon options easier, cheaper or more tax efficient than the default, such as Cycle to Work schemes.

How can employers measure employee commuting emissions?

Employee commuting emissions are generally measured by collecting data on how far employees travel, how often, and by what mode of transportation, using standard conversion figures (such as those published annually by the UK government department DESNZ) to convert these activities into kgCO₂e (standard unit used to measure carbon emissions) – the same method used by DASH Rides carbon calculator.

Method	How it works	Accuracy	Best for
Distance-based	Multiply each employee’s commute distance by emissions for each type of transport	Good	Most employers with basic survey data.
Fuel-based	Uses the actual fuel consumed while commuting.	Highest	Rarely practical at scale.
Average-data	Uses national or regional average commute statistics.	Lowest	A rough estimate when employee-level data isn’t available.

 

How much can a Cycle to Work scheme cut your commuting emissions?

The impact of a Cycle to Work scheme depends on three key factors:

Current travel habits

Offices where the majority of staff currently drive have far more room to cut than those where most already take public transport.

Scheme uptake

HMRC suggests 4% of adults in the UK have used the Cycle to Work scheme (HMRC, 2025). This low figure can be for many reasons, but barriers can include high cost-to-employee, the complicated nature of the scheme, lack of internal promotion as well as reluctance to change. However, an effective and easy-to-use Cycle to Work scheme can bring about three to seven times that 4% uptake figure.

What type of journey is likely to be replaced

Switching a 5-mile car commute to cycling saves around 1.4 kg CO₂e a day, whereas switching the same journey from rail saves closer to 0.2 kg. The benefit depends entirely on what the bike replaces.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that commuters using an e-bike will consider, and undertake, a journey that is up to double the distance that they would tackle if on a standard bike, which provides much greater opportunities for reducing commuting emissions.

As a worked example: in a 500-person company where 15% of staff join the scheme, and each swaps two car commutes a week of a 6-mile round trip for cycling, the saving comes to roughly 11 tonnes of CO₂e a year. That’s a reduction that the company  can measure and report on, making a credible contribution towards recognised climate targets and wider company aims.

 

How does Cycle to Work support your Environmental, Social & Governance (ESG) strategy?

Cycle to Work supports all three pillars of ESG: environmental, social and governance, which few employee benefits offer. It cuts employee commuter emissions, improves employees’ health and access to affordable transport, as well as producing the kind of auditable data that makes a sustainability disclosure credible.

Environmental impact

This is the most direct contribution, and the one which this article has already focused upon. Overall, every car commute switched to a bike is a real, immediate reduction in an organisation’s employee commuting footprint.

Social impact

The social case is becoming increasingly relevant due to frameworks such as the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), now requiring large firms to report on workforce wellbeing alongside emissions. This can also pull in smaller firms, who increasingly get asked for the same data by the larger customers they supply. A Cycle to Work scheme plays into this directly as it can:

• Improve physical and mental health. Cycling to work reduces sickness absence worth £63 per employee per year, with 70% of participants reporting better physical health and 65% improved mental wellbeing[ii].
• Widen access to affordable, reliable transport. Employees who switch from driving to cycling save an average of £1,262 a year[iii]
• Support workplace wellbeing strategies, as 90% of employers report a positive impact on employee wellbeing from scheme participation.[iv]

Governance

On governance, the value is the data. A well-run scheme produces clean, auditable evidence such as uptake rates  that can go into sustainability reports and board reporting. This matters as investors and regulators no longer just check whether you report Scope 3 but look at how credibly you’re cutting it. A report with measurable outcomes is commonly considered far stronger than reporting that you have bought carbon offsets. For an ESG lead, that’s the rare appeal: a single line item that pays into all three pillars at once.

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This article was provided by DASH – an award-winning UK Cycle to Work scheme provider. DASH’s main focus is to simplify the Cycle to Work scheme experience for employees and get more people cycling. DASH provides a modern, voucher-free online store where employees can get bikes, e-bikes, clothing and accessories, plus all-inclusive bike subscriptions and bike-share services such as Lime. As DASH is authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in its own right, there is no £1,000 spending limit. Employers also have the option not to fund employee purchases upfront, enabling the scheme to be cashflow neutral.

 

[i] Carbon Trust, 2024

[ii] Cycle to Work Alliance, 2024

[iii] Cycle to Work Alliance, 2024

[iv] Cycle to Work Alliance, 2024