On the road to ecomobility, French companies surveyed by OpinionWay

Where do French companies stand on the road to sustainable development?ecomobility ? What are the brakes What are the factors slowing down the transition to greener travel? What has been theimpact of the crisis on executive commitment? These were the main questions addressed by the webinar organised on Tuesday by OpinionWay. The online conference was based on a study carried out in the spring with Ecomob.Club - an online club of 500 business decision-makers - and the expertise of Jérôme Fouque and Yann Barbizet (Corporate Mobilities). All based on feedback from Mélaine Pouchain, head of mobility, travel and the working environment at Metro, and Emmanuel Guédon, company director at Animis Ressources Humaines.

awareness of the concept of ecomobility is growing

According to data collected by OpinionWay, the ecomobility report in 2021 remains shared. One person in two (48%) believes that a policy along these lines has already been put in place or is in the process of being rolled out in their company. In a quarter of cases (25%) there is simply no policy in place. But for Yann Barbizet, " overall, there is a growing awareness of the concept of ecomobility ".

At Métro, Mélaine Pouchain describes some of the steps already taken over the last three years, starting with the creation of a mobility committee involving all the stakeholders, followed by the introduction of a car-sharing system, and the provision - also on a shared basis - of bicycles and scooters.

OpinionWay's findings point to a number of motivating factors, starting with the benefits in terms of brand awareness. The fact of project an eco-responsible image is the main benefit to be gained from this approach according to the respondents (73%). This was followed byimproving employee productivity (56%), in reducing their stress in particular, and the pride experienced by these same employees (44%). Compliance with the regulatory framework only appears in 5th position (40%).

Conversely brakes remain for many companies, internally. Unsurprisingly, the resistance to change is the main obstacle: 57% of those surveyed cited employees' reluctance to change their habits. But the lack of infrastructure would also be responsible (51%), and to a lesser extent the lack of human resources to manage this issue (39%), or the lack of facilities within the company (31%). " Change means brakes "says Mélaine Pouchain (Métro). As for the cost of such a change, the assessment remains mixed. In fact, 48% of those surveyed felt that the introduction of ecomobility was not very expensive (41%) or not expensive at all (7%).

An analysis of the relationship between ecomobility and the environment cannot, of course, be divorced from the unprecedented situation that has prevailed for over a year now. For Jérôme Fouque, the impact of the health crisis has been " generally positive " : " In terms of the number of respondents who were sure they would be thinking about ecomobility in September 2020, we were at 20%. We are now at 42%. The number of reluctant or doubtful respondents has been reduced by a factor of three. So we can clearly see that there has been a shift. ".

Le teleworking factor is no stranger to these developments. The advent of teleworking has changed the way we look at commuting and, more generally, the embodiment of the workplace. " In highly urbanised regions, commuting times are obviously a major issue for employees, so it's inevitably a theme that is emerging and being put forward by trade unions, in terms of safety, work-life balance, but also in terms of efficiency. "says Emmanuel Guédon (Animis). " What is going to change things is that managers will realise that, in the end, teleworking employees perform at least as well, if not better, than when they are in the office. The trade-offs that will have to be made tomorrow between videoconferencing and face-to-face meetings will be interesting. These issues will also give rise to a debate on commuting times, mobility and so on. ".

the labour code loves the time clock

For Emmanuel Guédon, the more or less long-term evolution could be even more profound: " I find it hard to imagine that the Labour Code would not rethink its relationship with working time: the Labour Code loves the time clock, the indisputable elements. Teleworking poses a serious problem in this respect. There is going to be a clash between what the Labour Code wants and these new organisations, which are much more flexible, with the home as the workplace, nomadism, coworking, all these spaces that explode a workplace that was previously thought of as unique. ". Mélaine Pouchain warns: " Mobility and non-mobility form a whole, and we're going to have to work on it as a whole: teleworking, working outside the home, etc. Things are going to have to be put in place. ".

Alongside the paradigm shift and the change in attitudes, what role are or could be played by new technologies ? When asked about the role ofartificial intelligence on the road to ecomobility, Jérôme Fouque (Corporate Mobilities) points to " a lack of use of data on the part of a number of players, who are sitting on a goldmine of information but are unable to make the most of it" . Jérome Fouque therefore recommends ". understand, through fairly simple questionnaires, the uses, the appetite for behavioural change and the remaining obstacles. Rather than mass communication, with a relative possibility of effectiveness, if we arrive at a much finer segmentation of behaviours, and why not predictive, we will be able to define action plans which may not be individualised but which propose the right solution to the right employee. There's a fairly important role for this, particularly in the diagnostic phase ". At Metro, Melaine Pouchain confirms that the technology does not yet meet all needs, and that the miracle tool has yet to be invented. At the moment, there is no solution on the market that allows us to easily help our employees find the right way to travel at any given time, whether they are leaving from home, on a business trip, or from head office to another location. I don't think this tool exists yet. For the moment, we're doing it ourselves. ". Now it's up to the MaaS to find the right solution to accelerate the move towards intelligent, eco-responsible mobility...