The carbon footprint of crisis exercising

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson recently announced his plans to bring forward the ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars from 2040 to 2035. The change comes after experts said enforcing the ban in 2040 would be too late for the UK to achieve its target of emitting virtually zero carbon by 2050. All this got us thinking about the carbon footprint of crisis exercising. 

Back in the early days of Crisis Solutions, we would regularly travel all over the world delivering crisis management exercises (think along the lines of Rolling Stones world tour, flight cases, the lot!). This clearly had a significant impact on the environment and we are always thinking of ways to reduce our environmental impact on the planet. We are proud to say we are now a paperless company and have recently invested in reusable coffee cups which are given to all employees in order to reduce plastic waste on our travels.

 The pressure to reduce the carbon emissions has also affected the world of crisis exercising.  Many of our clients are having their travel budgets reduced in line with organisational environmental targets. This means that where previously the head of crisis management would go on a round the world trip to carry out exercises, they now have to think of new ways of working. 

 For many, this has bought challenges around how to ensure the delivery of consistent exercises across the board. In some organisations it has also meant that only teams within larger regions and countries are exercised leaving smaller teams with little to no crisis management experience. We have also seen an increase in the recruitment of ‘local’ crisis management specialists who help the head of crisis management to deliver a consistent exercising program.  

At Crisis Solutions, we have seen a significant increase in the number of clients asking us to run exercises remotely across multiple locations and it is a trend that shows no sign of slowing. In line with these requests, we developed the Crisis Exercise Manager, a portal that allows you to design and deliver consistent exercises globally. If you would like to book a demo you can click here.

How have the pressures of reducing your organisation’s carbon footprint affected your exercising strategy? We would love to hear from you!