How Green is you team?

Published by Paul Diggory for North Wales Housing Association in Housing

North Wales Housing (NWH) is urging staff to think green, and explore new ways of incorporating sustainability into their working lives, during a two week challenge.

The ‘Active Travel Challenge ’, led by the organisation’s Sustainability Co-ordinator, Rich Snaith, encourages teams of three to four people to join forces, competing against other teams in a race to reduce their carbon footprint and increase their fitness simultaneously!

Teams will be tasked with looking at how they travel during the two weeks, changing their typical transport patterns by introducing walking, cycling, car sharing or taking public transport, rather than a sole car journey. Teams will be awarded points on their chosen method of journey to work and the team with the most points will be victorious.

Rich Snaith said: “We’ve spent the past 18 months focusing on how we can improve our sustainable processes across all of our offices and centres and felt the start of the New Year was an ideal time to focus on our people.

“The initiative has generated lots of interest and we have at least eight teams of between three and four people competing. We’ve launched an online portal that will be updated each day and staff taking part can login and see how they’re doing in the league tables. Hopefully, this will kick start the effort and moving forward, people will incorporate different ways of travel into their lives on a more permanent basis.”

Under the initiative, NWH has installed a new cycle shelter at its head office in Llandudno Junction available for use by all staff. Rich Snaith has worked closely with various partners to develop the initiative including sustainable travel consultant JMP, Taith, Traveline Cymru, CTC, Arriva and Sustrans.

There has also been generous support from local cycle shops in Llandudno Junction and Bangor. Representatives from all of the organisations held an informal session with staff to discuss how they could incorporate more sustainable travel plans into their week. This was followed by a team walk and bike ride, encouraging people to step outside in their dinner time, exercising their legs and lungs. Staff members were also able to take their bicycles into work and enjoy a free cycle health check.

 Paul Diggory, North Wales Housing Chief Executive added: “This is a brilliant initiative and one that everyone seems to be engaged with and excited about. The competitive edge adds a fun element but ultimately we want people to really think about how they travel and potentially improve their fitness.”