Of course your rideshare program helps the environment – but just how much?
Here, as presented by Jeff Weir with the California Air Resources Board at the recent ACT conference, is a simple calculation that will let you see how many tons of greenhouse gas emissions your rideshare program eliminates each year. It will come in handy for when you need to quantify your success – whether to management, to employees, or as part of your corporate outreach to show your commitment to green practices.
- Calculate your vehicles miles traveled (VMT) reduction.
To start, determine daily round trips reduced:
Formula: (Number of employees x baseline AVR) – (Number of employees x current AVR) = daily round trips reduced
Example: If you have 200 employees, a baseline AVR of 1.2 and a current AVR of 1.5:
(200 x 1.2) – (200 x 1.5) = 34 roundtrips reduced per day
Next, to calculate VMT reduced:
Formula: (number of roundtrips/day) x (2 trips/day) x (average trip length) x (number of work days/year)
Example: (34 trips/day) x 2 x 19 (average commute trip length in Southern California) x 260 = 335,920
driving miles reduced per year - Calculate greenhouse gas emissions reduced
Formula: (VMT reduced) x 0.919 pounds per mile (the approximate amount of C02 eliminated per mile not driven)
Example: 335,920 x 0.919 = 308,710 pounds of greenhouse gas reduced
To convert to tons reduced:
308,710 ÷ 2,000 (pounds per ton) = 154 tons of greenhouse gas emissions reduced in one year
- Spread the word!
How many tons of CO2 did you help reduce? Don’t just tuck the number away in your files – make it part of your outreach to demonstrate how a small change like ridesharing can have a big impact on our environment.
- Roughly a pound of C02 emissions are avoided for each mile not driven.
- A single vanpool prevents on average 30 tons of CO2 emissions per year.
- Based on the national average of an 81% drive-alone rate, the commute carbon footprint at US companies per 1,000 employees is 2,072 tons – or on average more than a ton per employee.