Green travel policy

Travelling is an integral part of the way we do business. We provide financial products and services to companies, organisations and individuals across the UK and internationally and maintaining regular face-to-face contact with these customers is extremely important to us.

We employ more than 3,500 staff in locations across the UK including Manchester, Dorking, Salisbury and Exeter. The travel of our staff between these locations and to and from work is a characteristic of the way we do business.

We recognise that travel is associated with our business activities and that our employees have a direct impact on the environment, particularly through vehicle emissions, fuel consumption and our impact on local congestion. Inefficient business travel also results in significant and unnecessary costs to our business.

In ourEnvironmental Policy, we set out our commitment to encouraging the use of more sustainable forms of transport across our operations. In order to implement this commitment we have established the following objectives. We will:

Reduce dependency on car travel to essential business users
Encourage the use of videoconferencing, teleconferencing and teleworking
Incentivise multiple occupancy car use
Provide cycle facilities at our main offices and incentivise cycling as an environmentally friendly alternative to other modes of transport
Offer flexible working arrangements and interest free loans for bus and train passes
Provide public transport information to our staff and information on reducing the environmental impact of car travel
Integrate environmental specifications and requirements into our company car fleets
Ensure company car benefits encourage environmentally responsible behaviour
Encourage employees to use the most envrionmentally friendly option for business travel
Use business travel management information as a tool to reduce our carbon emissions as a business.

This policy will be implemented in the UK through our employee, IT and business travel policies and plans. The purpose of these will be:

To reduce the environmental impact of our business travel and staff commuting
To improve the efficiency and effectiveness in the way we travel to reduce unnecessary costs to the business.

The IT, HR and Facilities Management departments will be responsible for the development and implementation of the policies and plans. I will hold ultimate responsibility for this policy.

We will measure and report on the environmental impact of our transport activities and provide annual progress reports against targets.

Trevor Matthews
Chief Executive

Last reviewed April 2009.