Environmentally-friendly travel with the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company

The Isle of Man Steam Packet Company is dedicated to making travel greener. With the introduction of Manxman next year with its state-of-the-art hybrid engine, travelling with the Steam Packet will be greener than ever.

We encourage residents and visitors alike, to choose travel with a conscience, and were delighted to welcome Luke Adebiyi and Greg Easton on board, as they made their way to a conference in Switzerland leaving as small a carbon footprint as possible.

The slow road to Switzerland

Myself and my colleague Greg Easton were looking to go on a business trip travelling from the Isle of Man to Switzerland. We wanted to have a few meetings with new and existing clients, plus a couple of days attending a conference in Interlaken.

Given the pandemic, we have been unable to travel, so getting back out on the road to meet people in-person rather than via video call is a great feeling. Face to face interaction is powerful in our industry and is part of why we love what we do.

Last year, Capital International Group, launched its “Conscious Capital” commitment which sets our mission to reducing or offsetting the impact of our business activities on both the environment and society. It covers our approach to day-to-day business; including our role as an employer, the impact we have in our communities, the emissions we create and even the suppliers we choose to work with.

One of the targets we have set is to become carbon neutral by the end of 2025 and as part of this, we have taken the following steps:

• A formally constituted Conscious Capital Forum to drive action through the Group
• A Board approved Conscious Capital Mission Statement
• An audit of our energy efficiency
• Encouraging employees to choose greener travel methods through our cycle to work and electric vehicle schemes
• A commitment to plant one tree in the Isle of Man and one tree in Africa for every new account we open

Despite an overall reduction in the business travel undertaken by our team, a few trips are unavoidable, with clients benefiting hugely from meeting up in person and there are also the events and conferences to factor in.

Minimising the impact of these business trips is important to us and also imperative if we are to meet our 2025 goal. Looking at alternatives to plane travel, we realised we could reduce our emissions travelling by ferry and train.

For our Switzerland trip, we decided to set sail from the Isle of Man on the Sunday afternoon, take the train down to London and the next day, via the Eurostar, head straight to Geneva. We completed the same route on the journey home.

The benefit? Not only did we cut our emissions but we both managed to read books, catch-up on work, watch films and even daydream – all the things that are sometimes difficult to do amongst the stress of going through airport security and then keeping one eye on the departures board.

I have to say, the travel route was very smooth. Obviously, it was longer than other methods, but our productivity rates were higher. Travelling through Europe, especially places we hadn’t been before, was great.  We were able to get photos through the Swiss mountains and take in the beautiful scenery.

There was no rushing, everything went to plan, and we were able to enjoy the journey. There will of course be situations where “faster” travel is required but I’ll always look at the entire trip – not just the longer sections of the journey – and analyse where I can potentially travel via a greener method.

Of course, if you need to travel halfway across the world, sailing and traveling by train is likely not viable unless you’ve got a few weeks spare! But you can still reduce your footprint, perhaps by looking at how you travel to your hotel or, if you are travelling between cities, maybe consider the train or a coach. Planning is key to a successful low-emissions journey, but we’d recommend it to anyone!

If you would like to know more about our community support, please contact [email protected]  

Find out more about Capital International Group: www.capital-iom.com