Co-creation, stakeholder involvement and more focus on green transport among employees. These are among the ingredients of an EU-funded project to uncover how Port of Aalborg can ensure more sustainable employee mobility and increase health and wellbeing.
Together with Aalborg Municipality, Port of Aalborg is currently part of a larger EU-supported mobility project. The project is called Sustainable Mobility for Rural and Urban Transport (SMaRT), and it explores how companies can make employee mobility more sustainable regarding climate, health, and the economy.
Port of Aalborg has been part of the project since 2020 and has launched several different initiatives to ensure higher prioritization of green modes of transport among employees.
– In collaboration with our employees, the SMaRT project investigates how we can motivate greener transport to and from work and across the port’s areas. The ambition is to gain an environmental profit and increase employee health and wellbeing, says Technical Designer at Port of Aalborg, Anda Varma, who is the project manager for the port’s involvement in the project.
Electric bicycles for free use and free bicycle mechanic
As part of the SMaRt project and in collaboration with Aalborg Municipality, Port of Aalborg has provided employees with different green modes of transport in 2022. The port’s 90-plus employees can freely use these modes of transport on the port’s more than four million square metres of land.
– We have made electric bicycles and e-scooters available for employees to use when going from A to B at the port. Furthermore, we have made it possible to lease an electric bike for private use and have also significantly improved our cycling facilities. Every month, a bike mechanic services our employees’ bikes for free, providing a greater incentive to take a bike to work, explains Anda Varma.
With Port of Aalborg’s location on the eastern outskirts of Aalborg, it is not easy for all employees to take a bike to work. As a result, the port has launched several initiatives to make car travel to work greener:
– We are looking at whether employees can benefit from carpooling. Amongst others in collaboration with the platform Nabogo, where employees can coordinate transport with each other. In addition to reducing the individual employee’s carbon footprint, there is also an economic advantage to be gained as a private individual, says Anda Varna.
While Port of Aalborg works as a case in the project, North Jutland’s Transport Company and Aalborg University work as partners in the SmaRT project, which is scheduled to run until autumn 2022. Subsequently, Port of Aalborg will share its experiences with the project’s other actors:
– We have collected a lot of useful data through analyses and focus group interviews with our employees throughout the project. The next step in the project will be to evaluate with the other actors of the project, in order for us to learn more about what has and hasn’t worked. We look forward to learning and permanently implementing some of these solutions in the future, says Anda Varna finally.
SMaRT is supported through the Nordic EU programme Interreg Öresund-Kattegat-Skagerrak. In addition to Aalborg Municipality and Hjørring Municipality in Denmark, the Swedish municipalities Grästorp, Götene, Lidköping, Skara and Vara are also part of the project.
Read more about the SMaRT project (text in Swedish).
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