Pioneering French companies are introducing a new form of leave called ‘responsible travel time,’ granting employees one or two extra days off to accommodate slower, more eco-friendly transportation methods. Marjorie Cessac discusses this new form of leave in an article on the Le Monde website.
Want more days off? Take the train!
This summer, Héloïse Arnold went on vacation to Scotland by train. The long journey of nearly 1,400 kilometers was made more manageable thanks to a “responsible travel time” day offered by her employer. She was able to add this day to her regular vacation time to choose the train over flying: “This extra day helped with the long waiting times. I arrived in London in the morning then took another train, a night one, to Inverness in the evening,” she said.
However, most importantly, according to her calculations, this option enabled her to reduce her carbon footprint by a factor of 20 compared to the same journey by plane. The young woman works for Vendredi (“Friday” in French), a social startup already attuned to these issues, as it supports companies involved in environmental or social projects.
Since its launch in the first half of 2023, the program has already been used by one in three employees (out of 42). “This can be a turning point for people who want to travel in a more eco-responsible way, but who are sometimes still hesitant to do so,” said Julian Guérin, the company’s president, who considers it to be “a form of bonus.”
To qualify, you need to take a journey longer than six hours, whether by train, bus, carpool, or even bicycle. This leave can also be split into two half-days. “If, for example, an employee wants to travel between Paris and Barcelona by train (around seven hours), they can take Friday afternoon off to travel and arrive in the evening. Then organize a return trip on the following Monday with the first train at 6 am, and work in the afternoon.”
A new way to travel
The company was inspired by what Ubiq had already been doing for six months. Ubiq, a subsidiary of Nexity specializing in office sharing, is the first in France to experiment with this type of leave. It goes even further, granting up to two days a year to its employees. “The idea came about during a brainstorming workshop. Some of our employees had expressed their desire to travel more by train, while at the same time pointing out that it costs more and takes longer,” said Ubiq CEO Mehdi Dziri, acknowledging that while this day doesn’t solve everything, it does help address the second issue.
Nearly 50% of the company’s employees have already used this option to travel to places like Corsica, Italy, or Spain. “Initially, we thought the potential would be limited to our 37 employees and save a few dozen flights annually, but it could apply to thousands of workers,” said Dziri. According to him, this leave changes “the way you prepare for your trip, the way you think about it, and even the way you experience your journey, by incorporating stopovers.” Beyond the employee, “it also affects their partner, family, and friend group.”
What’s more, the CEO has been approached by an increasing number of companies keen to find out how this arrangement works. These include Baywa R.e. in Bordeaux, iAdvize, Railee, Atos, RIVP, Leyton, La Fresque du Climat, and HomeExchange. The latter, which promotes home swapping, has also embraced the idea, granting its employees two additional days off from December 2023. “More specifically, these are actually ‘semi-off’ days, where employees are encouraged to work when possible – if Wi-Fi is accessible or otherwise on offline tasks,” the group explained.
Improving your carbon footprint
Outside France, Great Britain has led the way with the launch of the Climate Perks program by the 10:10 Foundation in 2020, similar to these extra days off. “Our membership has grown by over 50% since this time last year,” said Sarah Howen, one of the project’s managers, in early September.
To date, 128 organizations, including law firms, architects, consulting groups, governmental organizations, and NGOs, have adopted this leave policy across four continents. “Most of them come to us because they want to improve the well-being, recruitment, and retention of their employees, and demonstrate their commitment to the climate both internally and externally,” said Howden, in charge of the program. “It’s exactly the kind of forward-thinking policy that people want.”
According to the foundation’s estimates, each journey made using Climate Perks could save an average of 444 kilograms of carbon (almost half a tonne). How can this development be accelerated? “Could this system benefit from incentives, such as tax breaks? Could it encourage the creation of a collective?” asked Dziri, without having a definite plan at this point. He estimates the cost of the operation at around €600 per employee per year but believes that the impact on the company’s image and internal culture is far greater.
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