(This is a guest blog post from Cecilia at Liftshare. Liftshare is the largest car-share website in the UK)
It might shock you to know that a full car is actually BETTER for the environment than public transport. Don’t believe us? Take a look at this image taken from the Government’s ‘Transport Direct’ website.
The problem is, so many of us still drive alone. In fact, 91% of car commuting is single occupancy. Put another way: between us all, we’re driving 38 million empty car seats round the UK’s roads every morning rush hour alone.
Something clearly needs to be done to put bums on those spare seats. Because if average car occupancy can be increased to just 2, the UK’s CO2 emissions would drop by nine million tonnes.
And the good news is that something is being done! The first ever week dedicated to car-sharing takes place from 4-8 October. Nearly 400,000 people have already signed up to liftshare.com, but now liftshare Week aims to enable thousands more people to find others going their way so they can share the journey.
To take part in liftshare Week, sign up for free to find yourself a car-sharer (or two!). And if your boss doesn’t mind, stick a few posters round the office to tell your colleagues about it too – you can download them from our site.
Katherine Hui is currently the Social site editor at Green Thing, a web-based public service in London that inspires people to lead greener lives through creative content.
Before this, she worked as the Development Manager at Social Innovation Camp, an organization that encourages people to use web and mobile-based technology to mobilise social change. She oversaw 300 ideas submission and helped build 20 prototypes – five of which have gone on to get further funding or investment.
Katherine’s came over to the UK form Canada in 2007 for an MSc program at the London School of Economics. Before arriving in London, she managed a small environmental start-up in Vancouver called the Canadian Climate Change Alliance.
Katherine is football mad. She is a loyal supporter of Arsenal FC, plays for Islington Borough Ladies FC and coaches for Gunners in Islington in her spare time. Her second favourite hobby is kite surfing and she can sometimes be found chasing the wind.
