Scottish Public Pensions Agency (SPPA) delivery of sustainable travel: FOI release

Information requested

1. Do you have a target to cut emissions from air and/or business travel? If so, please share information about any target(s) you have (e.g. description of the target, when the target was adopted, timeline to meeting the target).

2. Please provide copies of any corporate policy your organisation has on the reduction of emissions from business travel.

3. Please provide copies of any corporate policy your organisation has on the reduction of the use of air travel for business travel purposes.

4. Please provide details of the number of flights your staff have taken from Edinburgh & Glasgow Airports to London Airports for business purposes in the past 12 months (or your most recent 12 month reporting period) for travel to destinations within south-east England.

5. Please provide details of the number of rail journeys your staff have taken from Edinburgh & Glasgow railway stations to London railway stations for business purposes in the past 12 months (or your most recent 12 month reporting period) for travel to destinations within south-east England.

Response

1. SPPA follow Scottish Government policies and targets for reducing emissions via travel. In the 2015- 2020 plan, the targets were:

• Reduce emissions from work travel by 40% against 2013 to 2014 levels. We achieved 18% across air, rail, care hires, taxis and private car mileage. Our policy on domestic travel shows that specific actions can be effective but are required across all travel modes, particularly business flights beyond the UK.
• Reduce business flights to London by 20% by 2017 and 50% by 2020 against 2013 to 2014 levels. We achieved a 75% reduction in flights taken for business purposes between the five main Scottish airports and the five main London airports.
• Increase meetings using video or audio technologies by 20% by 2017 and 50% by 2020 against 2013 to 2014 levels. We achieved a 79% increase, not including the mass adoption of Skype for Business, which preceded Microsoft Teams that rolled out in 2020 to 2021.
• Increase the proportion of electric and hybrid vehicles in the pool car and Government car service fleets by 20 percentage points by 2020 against 2013 to 2014 levels – equivalent to 44 new vehicles in total by 2020. We were able to switch 94 vehicles in our fleet to electric, equivalent to a 31 percentage point increase.

2/3. Please find the Scottish Government Travel Policy for 2015-2020 attached. Scottish Government will produce a new Travel Strategy which SPPA will follow where relevant.

4. No flights were taken between Edinburgh and Glasgow airports to London airports for business purposes in the past 12 months.

5. The following rail journeys were taken between Edinburgh and London/SE England stations in the past 12 months:

• 12 return rail journeys between Edinburgh and London stations
• 1 single journey between Edinburgh and London stations
• 2 rail journeys within the London zone system
• 2 rail journeys between Edinburgh to the Midlands
• 1 rail journey within the Midlands

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.

FOI 202300374819 - Information Released - Annex

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