Start a car pool
Sharing your journey is a great way to reduce the environmental impact of travelling by car, and it's more sociable as well. Pledge to set up a car pool for your commute or school run.
The problem
Cars are often the focus of criticism by environmentalists, who note the levels of pollution caused by cars and the impact of road-building on our green spaces. In fact, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, driving a car is the single most polluting thing that most of us do.
However, for some people those greener options, such as public transport, walking or cycling, are simply not practical.
So if you do need to drive, how can you mitigate the environmental impact of your journeys?
What you can do
Did you know that every day there are ten million empty seats on the road. Sharing your car journey to work could save you an average £500 per year, as well as improving the environment by easing traffic congestion and cutting emissions. The closer a car is to passenger capacity, the more fuel-efficient it becomes in terms of emissions created per-person.
Driving is an expensive business too. When you factor in vehicle wear and tear, insurance, road tax and the price of petrol, you pay roughly 20p for every mile driven. Sharing your journey with others (or 'car pooling') enables you to share that cost.
How to do it
If you have children who need to be driven to school, try organising a rota for car pooling with other local parents. By taking turns to drop-off and collect your children, you'll save money and cut down on fossil fuel use.
If you know local people whose workplace is near your own, discuss organising a car pool with them. Alternatively, you might find other willing car poolers through a UK website such as 'National CarShare UK' and 'FreeWheelers'.
If the will is there, anyone can car pool. It just requires two or more people to want to travel to roughly the same place at the same time.
Meanwhile, M&S will do our bit to reduce transport emissions by making sure all our lorries run on at least 50% bio-diesel fuel.
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