Shifting air travel demand: a case study on enabling experimentation in surface travel

Abstract

This paper presents the first empirical evaluation of Climate Perks, an employee benefit scheme designed to reduce air travel demand by offering additional paid annual leave to those travelling without flying for vacation purposes. In-depth interviews and surveys were undertaken with employers that offer Climate Perks and travellers who have claimed journey days. The findings show the value of positive action to enable sustainable consumption in contributing to catalysing and mainstreaming low-carbon travel, drawing out key themes around recruiting travellers to surface travel, sharing knowledge and know-how, recrafting temporal experiences and learning-by doing to overcome infrastructural complexities of surface travel in a mobility system presently dominated by air travel. The paper also discusses how the boundaries around personal action on climate change are shifting as employers recognise the contribution of work to the formation of personal routines. This paper thereby contributes to understanding air travel demand and explores the potential for reducing this emissions intensive practice.

Keywords:

• Mobility
• air travel
• sustainable consumption
• energy demand
• social transformation

Introduction

The subject of reducing air travel demand is evocative and complex, particularly when it concerns vacation travel, which is the subject of this paper (Randles & Mander, 2009). However, absolute reductions, particularly to international leisure and business air travel will be necessary to reduce emissions. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2022) emphasises the urgency of reducing emissions in all aspects of production and consumption, stating the need for swift and substantial changes in demand (Creutzig et al., 2022). Air travel is amongst the most energy-intensive forms of consumption, contributing at least 2.4% of global CO₂ emissions and 3.5% of the global heating effect (Klöwer et al., 2021; Lee et al., 2021). Yet, despite longstanding recognition of the importance of aviation, growth in passenger numbers has outpaced efficiency improvements, resulting in an increased in emissions (Higham et al., 2022). It is vital that effective ways to reduce air travel demand, and with the appropriate urgency required to mitigate climate change. Achieving this requires that society finds ways of shifting air travel demand, reducing overall flight numbers, increasing the use of low-carbon travel modes and vacationing in less distant locations.

Given that air travel emissions are disproportionately attributed to high-income people and countries, reducing flying plays an important role in fair decarbonisation. Globally only around 11% of people fly (Gössling & Humpe, 2020), and efforts to reduce air travel demand place the burden of mitigation on those who contribute most to emissions (Büchs & Mattioli, 2022). In the UK, where participants in this study reside, half of the population will not fly in a given year, and 15% of the population are responsible for 70% of flights (Hopkinson & Cairns, 2021). Existing research shows the variety of ways that socio-cultural and economic developments have interacted with infrastructure and structural changes to normalise and enable flying, particularly amongst wealthy, educated, urban elites—those who typically have the highest capacity and resource to adapt (Czepkiewicz et al., 2018; Mattioli et al., 2023). Given that technical solutions are unlikely to reduce aviation emissions swiftly or substantially enough to align with decarbonization objectives (Peeters et al., 2016), there has been growing interest in interventions that could trigger changes in demand.

This paper presents the first empirical analysis of a novel initiative to shift air travel demand, Climate Perks, an initiative instigated by the charity Possible in 2019. Through Climate Perks, employers offer paid journey days in addition to employees’ usual annual leave to enable surface travel for vacation purposes. Interventions of this kind are indicative of the financial and temporal changes thought necessary to enable a modal shift in leisure practices (eg Larsen & Guiver, 2013), however there are few examples in practice. This paper describes the first empirical research into Climate Perks, presenting a thematic analysis of interview and survey data to examine the experiences of both travellers and participating organisations. Climate Perks aims to overcome the perceived time commitment involved in surface travel and increase travellers’ familiarity with vacationing without flying. This paper examines the extent to which these are effective in supporting a transition towards sustainable mobility practices.

Theorising flying

Many who fly acknowledge the environmental consequences of air travel to climate change and are broadly open to reducing air travel (eg Higham et al., 2016; Randles & Mander, 2009). At the same time, countercultures, like “Flygskam” (flight shame) and “Staying Grounded” (Becken et al., 2021; Morten et al., 2018; Ullström et al., 2023) indicate growing public pressure to reduce air travel demand in absolute terms. However, aviation emissions have grown consistently for the last 50 years, with an annual average rate of 2.2% yr − 1 (1970–2012) rising to 5% yr − 1 (2013–2018)(Lee et al., 2021. Only Covid-19 has resulted in any substantial decline in air travel, and despite Covid, Dray and Schäfer (2023) predict that global net aviation CO₂ will surpass industry goals by 2050 without substantial changes in policy and technology. Indeed, relatively few people report actively reducing air travel compared to other acts of personal consumption. For example, Chai et al. (2015) found only 17.8% of their sample report reducing air travel compared to 88.2% who report recycling and 79.2% who report reducing energy use.

The unsustainable nature of flying and rising aviation demand has spurred extensive research to understand why people fly. There are many perspectives on why people fly (see Cass, 2022; Gössling & Dolnicar, 2023 for reviews). Behavioural perspectives highlight how demand is upheld by a failure to relate one’s own flights to climate change impacts (Hares et al., 2010), the strength of value (and entitlement) associated with vacation travel (Morten et al., 2018) and flying specifically (Whitmarsh et al., 2020), and the lack of perceived alternatives or ability to reduce travel (O’Garra & Fouquet, 2022). Cohen et al. (2013) note the ability of aware travellers to rationalize their continued flying despite recognizing its climate implications. Sociological approaches identify collective factors including the role of flying in cosmopolitan identities (Gössling et al., 2019) and participation in a global elite—where travellers associate more strongly with distant people than their neighbours (Sahakian et al., 2021). Socio-demographic commonalities also help understand flying, including disposable income and education (Mattioli et al., 2023), urban dwelling and proximity to air travel infrastructure (Czepkiewicz et al., 2018), and a variety of relationships between migration and air travel (Williams & Hall, 2000).

Research on mobility systems underscores the impact of discourse and infrastructures on shaping contemporary mobility practices. Ullström et al. (2023) trace the procession of discourses that have shaped air travel practices, observing the dominance of aspirational luxury in early commercial aviation (1950–90’s), which emphasised the societal and personal benefits of air travel (Hall, 2005), and later gave way to a discourse on hypermobility. Hypermobility positions air travel as a mundane mode of accessing overseas vacations (Cohen & Gössling, 2015; Ullström et al., 2023). The proliferation of low-cost flights and air travel infrastructure normalised aeromobility, at least amongst those who fly, enabling faster, further, and more frequent travel. Consequently, Randles and Mander (2009) describe how some travellers experience surprise that a taken-for-granted and culturally desirable activity, “has suddenly become frowned upon” (p. 93). Amidst growing attention to mitigation, Peeters et al. (2016) reveal how ideas and technologies, like sustainable aviation fuels, are used by the aviation industry to justify inaction on reducing air travel demand (Higham et al., 2022). Ullström et al. (2023) argue that the prevailing discourse that flying is “normal, desirable, and beneficial” (p. 689) perpetuates carbon-intensive lifestyles by legitimising hypermobility and downplaying environmental impacts (Hanna et al., 2016).

When translating these insights into policy and action, initiatives to curb air travel demand often prioritize behavioural and economic measures over transformative systemic changes (Cass, 2022). While social marketing encourages sustainable lifestyles, however promoting reduced consumption is paradoxical and yields superficial changes to behaviour insufficient to meet the challenge of emissions reduction (Barr et al., 2011). This is particularly the case for vacation travel, given the high degree of importance associated with this practice (Gössling et al., 2019). Short-haul flight bans are strong symbolic actions, because long-haul flights are responsible for most emissions (Dobruszkes et al., 2022). Taxes provide effective disincentives to air travel, for example, in Austria and Germany Falk and Hagsten (2019) found a departure tax reduced the number of passengers travelling out of affected airports by 9% in year one, and 5% in year two. However, taxes impact low-income earners, young people, and non-business travellers the most, raising concerns about fairness. Frequent flier levees, while more progressive, may not substantially reduce air travel without broader cultural shifts, as frequent travellers are often sufficiently affluent to absorb rising costs (Büchs & Mattioli, 2022).

Amongst existing approaches to reduce air travel demand, Climate Perks is novel. Firstly, Climate Perks engages in the temporal dimensions of mobility, offering paid journey days to compensate for the duration of surface travel. The temporalities of travel are often discussed as a feature of mobility systems, and barrier to low-carbon modes. Flying became a preferred travel mode as it minimises time spent travelling (Larsen & Guiver, 2013). This rationalised framing of time—as a resource to be spent and saved—has been critiqued (Bissell, 2007; Southerton, 2020), yet this quality has been mobilised effectively to market flying in the travel industry (Ullström et al., 2023). Conversely, Chai et al. discuss how the lack (real or perceived) of discretionary time hinders the adoption of sustainable consumption practices. Indeed, the sense of slowness is one quality of a vacation that travellers seek, providing a contrast to (or escape from) the pace of ordinary routine (Southerton, 2020). Without engaging in these temporal dynamics, modal shifting requires travellers to compromise (eg spend less time in the destination) (Volden & Hansen, 2022). Larsen and Guiver (2013) propose temporal interventions to enable modal shift, giving additional annual leave as an example. However, they highlight that “holiday carbon spending is not viewed as of any relevance to employers” (p. 977) and differentiating annual leave entitlement between workers according to their leisure practices is contentious. Climate Perks is therefore novel as it introduces such an approach.

Secondly, policies and interventions targeting a reduction in air travel have traditionally focused on travellers, policy actors, and the travel industry, overlooking influential intermediaries in the consumption chain (Watson, 2012). Climate Perks takes a distinctive approach by collaborating with organizations, acknowledging their role in shaping demand and sharing participation costs between employers and employees. Employers, as middle actors (Janda and Parag, 2013), play crucial roles in legitimising sustainable consumption practices. Beyond their role in temporal coordination, organisations play host to social networks, where employees interact and exchange. Furthermore, by working within professional organisations, where employees are more likely than most to be frequent travellers, Climate Perks focusses on a social group where a change in mobility practices is likely to have an impact on emissions.

In these ways, Climate Perks engages with elements of the mobility system which stabilise flying as a common practice and moves beyond techno-economic and individualistic approaches to enable transition in mobility practices. The importance of adopting such an approach has been described in research (Cass, 2022; Cohen et al., 2013; Sahakian et al., 2021; Watson, 2012), however to date there are few empirical studies of initiatives of this kind. Climate Perks therefore presents an unusual case study and an opportunity to learn about air travel demand reduction. The conceptual and analytical resources presented in this section provide a lens through which to observe Climate Perks. The initiative does not engage in the infrastructural elements of mobility systems presently geared towards air travel, and the impact on this on overall efficacy is considered. Before presenting the empirical findings, the following section outlines the methods.

Methods

Climate Perks launched as a pilot in December 2019. This study was conducted in 2022, when uptake had increased after Covid-19-related travel disruptions. In collaboration with Possible, all 65 organisations involved in Climate Perks at that time were invited to interview, resulting in 17 responses. In-depth interviews were conducted with 14 organisations, screening three out due to their recent involvement. The interview consisted of questions about why employers offered Climate Perks, uptake, and how organisations might contribute further to reducing air travel demand. A survey was used to collect data on the size, nature and environmental ethos of each organisation, the date Climate Perks was implemented, and the perceived level of recognition of Climate Perks amongst employees. Overall, the organisations that participated in this study ranged in size (from 4 to 107 employees) and nature of business. Most were office-based professional services (eg accountancy, publishing) and non-governmental organisations (eg campaigns, charity work), and all but one was based in the UK (predominantly in London, Edinburgh, and Bristol). The sample is summarised in Table 1, and interview and survey questions are provided as supplementary material.

Table 1. Overview of organisation characteristics.

Nature of business	Employees (N)	Importance of sustainability? 1(low)–5(high)	CP Implemented
Environmental consultant	∼25	4	Unknown
Environmental Communications	∼50	5	2020
Architects	∼80	5	Pre-2020
Environmental campaigns	∼30	4	Unknown
Charity - Publisher	<10	4	Pre-2020
Accountant	∼15	5	2020
Health Tech	100+	5	2022
Renewable electricity supplier	∼80	5	2020
Financial Services	∼30	5	Pre-2020
NGO - digital democracy	∼30	5	Pre-2020
Marketing	100+	5	2022
Charity	∼60	5	2021
Sustainable aviation	∼50	5	2021
Medical communications	∼90	5	2020

Employers were asked to share an invitation to interview with all employees who had claimed travel days. 21 travellers were interviewed (including eight that interviewed as employers), with questions enquiring about their trip, familiarity with surface travel, reasons for using Climate Perks, and experiences of having done so. A survey collected socio-demographic details, characterised travel patterns (frequency of flying, experience travelling by land), and collated trip data (origin, destination, companions, travel mode), and support for relevant climate change mitigation strategies (eg frequent flier levees, investment in surface transport infrastructure). Participants varied in age (25–52), gender (fourteen women, seven men), income (range £20,000–£99,000) and whether they had children (eight yes, eleven no, two did not respond) although were predominantly White British/European. It can be inferred from the data collected that only two trips (one per participant) involved visiting family overseas. There was variation in the reported frequency of travel, flying and previous familiarity with surface travel for vacation purposes. The sample is described in Table 2, and interview and survey questions are provided in supplementary material.

Table 2. Overview of traveller characteristics.

	Vacation flights (N/annum)	Age (years)	Gender	Ethnicity	Parent	Employment situation?	Combined household income (£/annum)
Andy	One – two	48	Male	White	Yes	Full time	£50,000–£79,999
Ali	Five – six	35	Female	White	No	Part -time	£80,000–£99,999
Dom	None	38	Male	White	Yes	Full-time	£50,000–£79,999
Fiona	One – two	45	Female	White	No	Full time	£35,000–£49,999
Alys	None	28	Female	White	No	Part -time	£35,000–£49,999
Jo	None	43	Female	White	No	Full-time	N/A
Jess	One – two	29	Female	White	No	Full-time	£35,000–£49,999
Luke	Three – four	34	Male	Multiple ethnic groups	No	Full time	£35,000–£49,999
Lizzie	One – two	42	Female	White	No	Full time	£50,000–£79,999
Nate	One – two	52	Male	White	Yes	Part -time	£80,000–£99,999
Jonny	None	25	Male	White	No	Full time	£50,000–£79,999
Steph	None	44	Female	White	Yes	Part -time	£20,000–£34,999
Sharon	One – two	26	Female	White	No	Full time	£35,000–£49,999
Bill*	None	35	Male	White	Yes	Full time	£80,000 - £99,999
Claire*	None	41	Female	White	Yes	Full time	£50,000–£79,999
Ella*	Three – four	36	Female	White	N/A	Full time	N/A
Felicity*	< One	N/A	Female	White	No	Full-time	N/A
Georgia*	Five – Six	56	Female	White	N/A	Full-time	£80,000–£99,999
Melanie*	One – two	45	Female	White	No	Full-time	£20,000–£34,999
Frances*	One – two	47	Female	White	Yes	Full-time	£35,000–£49,999
Pieter*	Three – four	45	Male	White	Yes	Full-time	£50,000–£79,999

* Also interviewed as employer.

Interviews were audio recorded, transcribed, and pseudonymised. The qualitative analysis was inductive and thematic, identifying and examining common themes within the data and using these to reflect on developments in policy and research. Data from the survey was used to describe the sample and contextualise responses. The study acknowledges its limited sample size and does not aim to measure the total impact of Climate Perks. Nevertheless, trip data enables an estimation of the resulting impact on emissions of the journeys reported. This estimation is calculated using the University of Manchester Carbon Savings Tool (Huck & Blakey, 2023a), which calculates emissions based on user-inputted origin and destination, which were based on survey data (see Table 3). The tool then compares great circle flight distances to equivalent land journeys estimated through Google Maps (car journeys) and OpenStreetMap (rail journeys). Emissions factors from the UK Government Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) are applied to compare emissions (see Huck & Blakey, 2023b for full method). These estimates should be used only as an indication of potential savings, not least as multiplication factors are context dependent and standardised emission factors (particularly carbon equivalents) disguise a considerable range in values (Klöwer et al., 2021; Lee et al., 2021).

Table 3. Summary of trip data for 25 reported trips.

Origin	Destination	Companions	Travellers (N)	Return?	Travel modes	Flight avoided	Calculated comparison trip	Main mode	Flight (kg CO2/pax)	Car (kg CO2/car)	Car (EV) (kg CO2/car)	Train (kg CO2 per pax)	Estimated saving (kg CO2)
													all pax.	Per pax.
London	Chambery	Partner, 3 × child 4–13	5	Yes	Car (EV, private)	Yes	Return trip London City (UK) to Aix Les Bains Chambery (FR)	Car (EV)	219.00		99.00		996.0	199
Tunbridge Wells	Tarbert	Partner, Brother	3	Yes	Train, bus, ferry.	Yes	Return trip Gatwick (UK) to Glasgow (UK)a	Train*	188.60			48.80	419.4	140
Tunbridge Wells	Belfast	Alone	1	No	Ferry, train	Yes	No included in calculation, equivalent routes not found
Bristol	Arnhem, Netherlands	Alone	1	Yes	Cycle, train ferry	No, travelled same way	Return trip Bristol (England) to Eindhoven (NL)^b	Train*	183.00			49.60	133.4	133
London	Toulon, France	Alone	1	Yes	Train	No, travelled same way	Return trip London City (UK) to Hyeres (FR)	Train	262.40			89.60	172.8	173
Caernarfon	Belgrade, Serbia	Alone	1	No	Bus, train	Yes	One-way trip Liverpool (UK) to Tirana (AL)^c	Assumes train	217.10			104.60	112.5	113
Bristol	Galway	Partner, parents	4	Yes	Ferry, car	Yes	Return Trip Bristol (UK) to Galway (IRE)	Car	168.60	253.40			421.0	105
London	Barcelona	Alone	1	Yes	Train	Yes	Return trip London Heathrow (UK) to Barcelona (SP)	Train	280.40			112.80	167.6	168
London	La Rochelle	Friends	3	Yes	Train	Yes	Return trip London City (UK) to La Rochelle (FR)	Train	213.20			85.80	382.2	127
Edinburgh	Winchester	Partner	2	Yes	Bus, train	Yes	Return trip Edinburgh (UK) to Southampton (SP)	Train	184.80			49.20	271.2	136
London	Glasgow	Partner	2	Yes	Train	No, travelled same way	Return trip Gatwick (UK) to Glasgow (UK)	Train	188.60			48.80	279.6	140
London	Doudeville	Partner	2	Yes	Train	No, travelled same way	Return trip London City (UK) to Deauville (FR)	Train	127.00			48.80	156.4	78
Totnes	Hyeres, France	Partner, friends	4	Yes	Train	Yes	Return trip Exeter (UK to Hyeres (FR)	Train	274.80			108.20	666.4	167
Edinburgh	Annecy, France	Partner	2	Yes	Train	Yes	Return trip Edinburgh (UK) to Annecy (FR)	Train	304.60			115.60	378.0	189
Edinburgh	Paris	Friend	2	Yes	Train	No, not travelled	Return trip Edinburgh (UK) to Paris Charles De Gaulle (FR)	Train	233.60			77.80	311.6	156
Mid-Wales	Cambrils, Catalonia	Partner, 2 x child 4-13	4	Yes	Train	No, travelled same way	Return trip Liverpool (UK) to Reus (SP)	Train	318.80			118.20	802.4	201
Birming-ham	Orkney	Other adults	2	Yes	Car, train	Yes	Return trip Birmingham (UK) to Kirkwall (UK)	Car	210.20	338.40			82.0	41
London	Aalborg	Partner	2	Yes	Train	No, travelled same way	Return trip London City (UK) to Aalborg (DEN)^d	Train	236.80			126.40	220.8	110
London	Broughty Ferry	Partner, child U4, child 4–13	4	Yes	Train	Yes	Return trip London City (UK) to Dundee (UK)	Train	187.00			52.60	537.6	134
Bristol	Bruges, Ghent	Partner, friends	4	Yes	Car	No, not travelled	Return Trip Bristol (UK) to Oostende (BEL)	Car	154.60	151.60			466.8	117
Bristol	Normandy	Partner, friends	4	Yes	Car	Yes	Return Trip Bristol (UK) to Paris Charles de Gaulle (FR)	Car	166.20	213.20			451.6	113
London	France	Family	3	Yes	Train	No, travelled same way	Return trip London City (UK) to Paris Charles de Gaulle (FR)	Train	144.20			31.80	337.2	112
North Portugal	South Portugal	Partner	2	Yes	Train	Yes	Return trip Espinho (POR) to Lisbon (POR)	Train	129.00			21.40	215.2	108
London	near Bordeaux	Family	4	Yes	Train	No, travelled same way	Return trip London City (UK) to Bordeaux (FR)	Train	213.20			72.80	561.6	140
Amsterdam	French Alps	Family	4	Yes	Train	No, not travelled	Return trip Amsterdam (NL) to Geneva (SW)	Train	203.00			67.80	540.8	135
											Total (kg CO2		9,084.10
											Total if flight avoided (kg CO2)		5,100.70

^aOnly train leg calculated. Assumes onward travel to final destination would have been similar from Glasgow.

^bEstimate of equivalent journey by train, underestimates savings resulting from cycle leg.

^cCalculated trip will underestimate all emissions as destination and origin are poor substitutes.

^dCalculated train trip to London-Brussels-Gothenburg (no route to Aalborg found).

The study was conducted in accordance with [insert university review] ethics committee [insert reference after review].

Findings and discussion

The following section presents empirical findings from this study, reporting the themes that emerge most strongly within the data. Section 3.1 presents a traveller perspective, examining how Climate Perks supports experimentation with, and normalisation of, low-carbon travel. These findings illustrate how travellers begin (or continue) a process of undoing the experiential learning attained through past experiences of flying, gathering new knowledge (and knowhow), which undermines previous ideas about the feasibility and temporal experience of surface travel. Section 3.2 then turns to the employer perspective, exploring how Climate Perks enables us to understand organisations’ changing and varied roles for enabling sustainable lifestyles.

Shifting demand: travellers experiences

The following sections describe the findings from travellers’ perspectives in three sections: Firstly, these findings show that the initiative successfully prompted respondents who were previously unfamiliar with surface travel to experiment, and for those more familiar, reinforce and extend their surface travel experience. Secondly, the findings show the importance of interpersonal relations between potential travel companions, which can both enable surface travel and stabilize air travel. Furthermore, interpersonal relationships that extend beyond travel companions (eg between families, friends, and workplaces) normalise surface travel, and enable the exchange of practical knowledge (know-how) that makes surface travel more accessible. Thirdly, the findings show how participation in surface travel unsettles previously held ideas that normalise flying and contributes to stocks of embodied knowledge that support future participation. Participants note how the different rhythms and temporal sensations of surface travel compared to flights problematise the notion that speed between origin and destination is a priority for vacation travel. Simultaneously, participation in surface travel improves participants ability to navigate complex surface travel routes and infrastructural insufficiencies that arise in a mobility system dominated by flying.

Enabling experimentation in surface travel

Climate Perks was used by diverse individuals for various trips. 25 trips were reported, with some respondents having claimed for multiple trips. Most trips were by train from the UK to mainland Europe or within the UK, or multi-modal trips to remote locations within the UK (eg Outer Hebrides). The origin for most trips was from London, Edinburgh, Wales and Bristol mirroring the geography of participating organisations. Noteworthy journeys include a multi-modal one-way trip from Caernarfon in Wales to Belgrade in Serbia, and a trip that involved cycling from Bristol to Amsterdam and a multi-modal return. Table 3 describes the origin, destination and travel mode(s) for each reported trip.

Fourteen trips directly substituted a flight to the same destination, aligning with Climate Perks’ best-case use. Eight trips may have been made by land regardless, with paid journey days reinforcing existing low-carbon travel. Three trips may not have been made or been to different locations if Climate Perks were not available, with more ambiguous implications for emissions. Climate Perks prompted participants who were unfamiliar with surface travel to explore new destinations and routes. For example, Ella describes seeking opportunities to use the paid travel days to experience “slow travel”:

It’s worth considering whether I can use my travel days. If we book a trip I think “can we slow travel?”, “Can I make use of my paid days?”

(Ella, three-four flights per year, travelled by car to North Europe with friends)

For others more familiar with surface travel options, the paid journey days tip the balance in favour of surface travel when otherwise they might have flown:

It solidified it [not flying] for me yeah because now I get the extra days I just I wouldn’t even consider a fight whereas before I might have done because it is a bit quicker.

(Claire, does not typically fly, travelled by train within the UK)

These findings show that the initiative successfully prompted experimentation with surface travel, and for those already inclined, it reinforced and expanded their commitment to low-carbon travel. Participation in Climate Perks is voluntary. It is therefore unsurprising that most respondents expressed intentions to fly less, and some flew little or not at all prior to Climate Perks. However, there were also travellers in the sample who flew multiple times a year for vacation purposes. Prior research indicates an awareness among those who fly of the environmental impact of air travel (Randles & Mander, 2009), and some willingness to reduce air travel (O’Garra & Fouquet, 2022). However, few people actually reduce air travel (Chai et al., 2015) and the time involved in surface travel is amongst the most commonly reported reasons for not doing so (Larsen & Guiver, 2013). Therefore, Climate Perks’ offer of paid journey days overcomes this barrier for travellers open to surface travel, however relatively low participation in Climate Perks within participating organisations suggests that the paid journey days remain insufficient to mobilise change for many others.

Interpersonal relationships: recruiting and normalising travel practices

Climate Perks introduced surface travel to travellers beyond the direct recipients of the paid journey days, resulting in considerable carbon dioxide reductions even within this relatively small sample. While some respondents travelled alone, most travelled with friends or family (including young children and elderly parents), resulting in the avoidance of 70 flights (one passenger, one way) and approximately 5.1 tonnes CO₂. This figure includes only trips where a direct substitution was made (N = 14), with all reported trips resulting in 130 flight-free journeys (one passenger, one way) and 9.1 tonnes CO₂. Table 3 provides a breakdown of the assumptions and estimated emissions for each trip.

Several respondents described persuading companions to travel with them by land, sometimes finding shared enthusiasm, and sometimes overcoming reluctance and doubt. Jonny, for example, described two trips from Edinburgh to France, the first to an international tennis tournament with a friend, the second to go camping with his partner.

My friend took some persuading. He felt it was just a “quick trip” and the train required an extra day of unnecessary travel. My girlfriend was a much easier sell, as the train meant we could more easily, or more cheaply, take all our camping gear.

(Jonny, one-two flights per year, travelled twice to France by train)

In this case Climate Perks helped a reluctant flier to have conversations that led to multiple flights being avoided. Recruitment—an important vector for sustainable mobility practices (Watson, 2012)—is very literal here, widening participation in a practice that would otherwise be unusual for all involved. For other respondents, however, the process worked in reverse, serving to stabilise air travel by connecting individuals to the work commitments of others:

My partner doesn’t have Climate Perks and it’s pretty miserable to start a holiday not together, so we don’t travel by land as much as we could.

(Ali, five-six flights per year, multi-modal travel from Kent to Scottish Highlands)

My partner works in retail, so is much less flexible than me. We’re quite limited in terms of his holidays or how much time we could take [to travel].

(Lizzie, flight-free since 2020, train from London to France with a partner)

This finding is likely one reason that Climate Perks was not more widely used, and further research with employees in participating organisations that had not used the initiative would help understand this better. To scale the initiative, further attention could be paid to how would-be-claimants can be used to refer other employers to Climate Perks, or how the benefit might otherwise be shared with a companion.

Beyond immediate travel companions, social relationships are also important in normalising surface travel and exchanging practical information that makes surface travel feasible in a mobility system dominated by flying.

If my colleague takes a train to Turin and it’s fine and he comes back with a load of lovely photos of the journey and said how easy it was, that it’s perfectly normal, well that makes it a lot more achievable.

(Melanie, does not typically fly, multi-modal travel within the UK)

By working within organisations, Climate Perks fosters a community of surface travellers in a setting where flying is often normalised (Nielsen et al., 2021). This aids recruitment, helping would-be-surface-travellers to navigate anxieties and practical challenges. Several respondents described Climate Perks having catalysed conversations about surface travel in the workplace, enabling previously unfamiliar destinations and travel routes to be identified, and the exchange of “hacks” (practical tips) to ease the journey, such as ticket booking tools. Sharing experiences makes travel without flying seem more feasible –even desirable– to others without access to Climate Perks. One participant likened this to seeing a neighbour painting a house; being able to see if the outcome is desirable and query any practical concerns, thereby making your own project more achievable. Others described how once they had travelled by land, family and friends were more inclined to explore surface travel option for similar trips. One group of frequent fliers are those who visit friends and family overseas (Gössling & Dolnicar, 2023), and this exchange of experience would seem particularly beneficial in a setting where similar, regular trips are made by friends and family.

Acquiring the competences to support sustainable practices is often cited as a requisite for mobility transitions (Kent et al., 2017; Watson, 2012). However, many initiatives to reduce demand overlook this in favour of persuading and incentivising individual travellers, underplaying the role of social interactions in recruitment to low-carbon travel (and defection from air travel). This study identifies various ways that Climate Perks aids recruitment to surface travel through social networks, ranging from convincing of others to travel by land, to more subtle exchanges of experience. Vacation planning is a chore that many travellers seek to minimise, which reinforces air travel given the relative coherence of infrastructure and booking systems (Sahakian et al., 2021). Here, not only does talking about travel aid planning, but it contributes to travellers maintaining their membership in a community, becoming a bonding practice that creates space for the additional planning needed for surface travel. In this way Climate Perks demonstrates the importance of companionships and social interactions to debates on air travel, both as enablers of and hindrances to mobility transitions. Wider consideration of how social interactions could be mobilised to support recruitment to low-carbon practices and prevent the sustenance of high-carbon ones would be worthwhile.

Learning by doing: recrafting temporal experiences and overcoming infrastructural insufficiencies

By participating in Climate Perks, travellers gain experiences of vacation travel that unsettle and contradict those previously gained when flying. This section considers how participants experiences of surface travel challenge the temporal conventions and commonly held ideas that circulate in a mobility system dominated by air travel, and how competencies interact with the infrastructural arrangements of mobility systems to aid and impede surface travel.

So far, several quotes have alluded to how the temporalities of different travel modes affect participation. Claire’s preference for a “quicker” journey, Jonny’s friend’s desire for a “quick trip”, and Lizzie’s reflections on work commitments evidence the utility value that flying affords by speeding the journey between origin and destination. Flying maximises the time spent away from ordinary routines (and their rhythms), however, participants reveal how surface travel offers an altogether different rhythmic experience to flying; a sense of slowness that means the contrast with everyday routine begins during the journey rather than in the destination:

Once you’re on the journey, you’re on the journey. If you go to an airport, you have to drive find parking, and then wait for ages. [On a train] there’s a continuous motion thing. None of the stop-start-iness [sic]. Somehow, even if it’s taking longer, you keep moving.

(Pieter, three-four flights per year, train travel in northern Europe with family)

In this extract, Pieter reflects on how, unlike train travel, flying perpetuates the sensation of haste that a vacation promises an escape from. In the following, Nate more directly reflecting on the contrast between flying and train travel:

Flying is riddled with anxiety and frustrations… will there be queues? will I miss my flight? I have to get to and from an airport, be in an airport, which is like being locked in a shopping centre. Whereas train-ing [sic] is slower in the sense that you’re not pushed around, you’re not stood waiting as much, you’ve got space, you can sit around a big table, we like to play games on the train, we do work on the train, lots of things can happen on the train. [On a plane] I’m just waiting for it to be over.

(Nate, one-two flights per year, train travel with spouse and friends from Exeter to south of France)

Participants’ juxtaposition of temporal experiences shows how train travel involves a deceleration in temporal experience that allows the journey to become part of the vacation, rather than solely means to arrive. Watts (2008) describes how rail passengers “make time”, by making an experience of time that passes, rather than the “annihilation of […] time due to speed” (p719). Pieter’s quote echoes this, reflecting on the increased possibilities that surface travel creates. Other participants described surface travel as offering opportunities for entertainment, work, sightseeing, rather than a sensation of “waiting” while travelling by air. Bissell (2007) describes the sensation of waiting as “dead time […] a tedious boring experience”, if not brought alive with potential. Despite the air travel industry’s efforts to facilitate other experiences (eating, shopping, internet browsing etc), surface travel affords space and connection with the local environment that holds greater potential and offers a different temporal experience of slowness.

Another factor in this deceleration was the sense of flow participants experienced when travelling by land:

It feels like the holiday starts as soon as you leave the house. I walked to the station in Edinburgh and walked to the campsite when we got there. You don’t have to rely on taxis from the airport[…], so it’s a more relaxed way of going.

(Jonny, one-two flights per year, travelled twice to France by train)

Much of the organisation involved in surface travel precedes the trip, and Jonny reflects on taking responsibility for that organisational labour, to compensate for his companions’ lack of access to Climate Perks. Once moving, a sensation of continuity was felt and with the travel becoming more a part of the vacation, objective time becomes less important than the experience of movement.

Not all participants shared this experience. While train travellers reflected on the ease of surface travel between well-connected cities, the quickly ease deteriorated when travelling to (or through) less well-connected locations. Similarly, travellers combining multiple modes describe frustration and anxiety in linking different travel legs and fragmented mobility systems. Moving beyond the Eurostar network into France was a recurrent example of how the discontinuity of train travel beyond main lines requires greater effort from the traveller:

Not everyone is a French speaker and in Paris you have to cross Paris to get to the other station, you have to buy another ticket for the metro, and that takes some working out. But once you know, you know.

(Nate, one-two flights per year, travelled by train with spouse and friends from Exeter to south of France)

Felicity described the same transfer as “unintuitive”, requiring the navigation of language barriers and ticket counters, interactions that the air travel industry has designed out of the mobility system. Indeed, O’Garra and Fouquet (2022) find 38% of air travellers see “no alternative” to flying. Though there are alternatives on many routes, interchanges, language barriers and at the counter ticket purchasing require interactions with mobility systems that have become unfamiliar to many travellers. In contrast, air travel is enabled by a coherent system of infrastructural provision; airports and aircrafts, air travel providers and booking agents, baggage handling, taxi and other onward travel links, and the unending list of facilitative tools and technologies that smooth the experience of air travel. For some, the homogeneity and commercialism of airports is stifling, “like being in a shopping centre” (Nate). Yet the coherence of this mobility system eases air travel to the extent alternatives become unimaginably complex.

Participation in surface travel requires competencies and skills that differ from those needed to navigate air travel, competencies that are vital to the diffusion of alternative modes of travel (Sahakian et al., 2021). However, for those new to surface travel or on an unfamiliar route or mode, the interactions between existing competencies and the fragmented material arrangements of surface travel systems produced anxiety about the journey. In the following extract, Jo describes the additional labour and concern involved in coordinating their trip:

I went across on the ferry with my partner. We drove to Holyhead, parked, and got the ferry. Then we picked up a carshare with my sister and her husband to get to the West Coast. My parents drove and got the ferry. There’s a bit more planning and cognitive side of it, you know, where will we park? What time do we need to get up for the ferry?

(Jo, flight free since 2019, multi-modal travel with extended family to west coast of Ireland)

Coordinating multiple companions on different routes and modes, with different accessibility requirements, time constraints and origins required Jo to consider details like arrivals times from multiple locations, different classes of ferry tickets and parking spaces. Jo describes how the “fun of the trip” began when she departed the house, but so too did the concern about logistics as there existed many more options and opportunities for interruption or delay than taking a flight would present. Several respondents, Jo included, described how the experience was less difficult than they (and their companions) had anticipated, and that having undertaken the trip they felt better prepared for future surface travel. Jo concludes with “having done it once, it won’t be so bad for next time”, echoing Nate’s “once you know, you know” and showing the importance of surface travel experience in supporting future low-carbon travel.

Learning by doing was a common theme in the interviews, and several travellers also reflected on the un-learning involved as their participation in surface travel contradicted previous experiences of air travel. For example, Jess described having inadvertently planned a longer route based on her experience of flying:

If you fly you go via Bordeaux, and then get the train or drive. But if you get the train, you can go straight from to La Rochelle. I stupidly got the trains to Bordeaux, and then back up again, so I extended our trip by a day and two people copied me!

(Jess, one-two flights per year, travelled by train London to La Rochelle with two friends)

In this case, Jess’ prior knowledge was sufficient to navigate infrastructural complexities and arrive in location, but maladapted to rail travel, and resulted in a less direct route being taken. Others described difficulties in identifying destinations well-served by rail outside of major transport hubs, such that even before attempting to purchase tickets, more effort was required to plan a vacation. Last mile travel, without the convenience of taxi booking, car rental and public transport connections that coalesce around airports add nervousness and difficulty to planning. Whereas the integration of air travel infrastructure both with other travel infrastructure, tourism infrastructure, marketing and booking tools has made onward travel more predictable and straightforward. Participating in surface travel contributes to the accrual of competences and familiarity (know-how) that improves travellers’ ability to negotiate complex travel routes. Interviewees describe having found tools and resources on their journeys that would support future planning, including apps that offer integrated public transport planning and blogs like that service as guides to train travel. However, some of the difficulties encountered are beyond the control of travellers, the lack of synchronisation between journey legs and travel modes, and the shortage of integrated travel booking were two commonly cited frustrations that require further attention and investment to facilitate a wider transition away from flying, along with marketing of alternative destinations. These are important areas for investment to improve the coherence of surface travel systems.

Shifting boundaries of responsibility: why employers offer paid leave for surface travel

Given that employer-led action on vacation travel is unusual, one of the initial questions investigated is why employers offer Climate Perks. This section turns to the employer perspective, amongst which a variety of responses three themes are identified; shifting ideas about responsibility for lifestyle emissions, remaining competitive in a green economy, and acting on a hard-to-mitigate activity. While some respondents described not wanting to intervene in employees’ lives, others described how a shift to working from home during Covid-19 had brought into focus the role of the organisation in influencing emissions more usually positioned as personal:

“Should we be encouraging people to change to a green energy supplier?” While you could say that’s nothing to do with the employer it’s a personal decision, you could also say we’re using electricity for work [while working from home], and so we have a responsibility to shift that to green suppliers. […] Philosophically, there are questions about our role as an employer in [reducing emissions] in our employees’ lives.

(NGO, 30 employees, pre-2020 commitment to Climate Perks)

Climate Perks has found traction in a conversation about the role of organisations in enabling emissions reduction beyond the organisation. Reporting organizational emissions has become common since the Greenhouse Gas Protocol (2001), including Scope 3 emissions. Scope 3 emissions are indirect emissions resulting from an organisation’s operations, which includes business travel, employee commuting, and sometimes the energy consumed by employees working remotely. Employee vacation travel is not within the Greenhouse Gas Emissions accounting standard. Some employers saw themselves having a role in enabling meaningful lifestyle change, and Climate Perks an effective way to do so given that vacation travel was likely a substantial component of their employees’ lifestyle emissions (Mattioli et al., 2023):

The company provide personal carbon footprint service for staff as a carbon literacy project. Staff typically have low footprints, as many of them live in small flats in central London and use public transport or bikes, so flying is a big component of their footprint and if we’re committed to reducing emissions, we need the initiatives we commit to be meaningful in reducing emissions.

(Architect, 80 employees, pre-2020 commitment in Climate Perks)

For others, Climate Perks offered a chance for employers to stand out in an increasingly green economy, extending the more usual package of employee benefits to appeal to new and existing employees:

We have a cycle to work scheme, an electric vehicle leasing scheme, an ethical pensions scheme, a lot of the social events that we do they’re with sustainable organisations, all of our catering is low carbon, we’re doing all kinds of things, so Climate Perks boosted the benefits program that we have.

(Digital Communications, 55 employees, pre-2020 commitment)

Survey results show that sustainability is a priority for the organisations participating in this study, and Climate Perks addresses a gap in existing organisational initiatives and employee benefit schemes, and enabled organisations to differentiate themselves. Interviewees spoke of these benefits as “usual offerings” and “ordinary incentives” indicating how sustainability-oriented employee benefit schemes are becoming increasingly common. While far from universal, workplaces are increasingly exploring ways to enable sustainable consumption in and beyond the organisation forming part of holistic sustainability strategies, and a means of fostering alignment between the desired organizational culture and the practices of employees (Süßbauer & Schäfer, 2019). For the employers interviewed, Climate Perks helps attract and retain staff that share similar values and enabled their employees to embody and perform the ethos of the organisation.

Finally, several organisations saw value in Climate Perks as offering a form of compensation for the environmental burden of their operations, having avoided business travel flights to the extent felt feasible, and until further options to reduce emissions were identified:

The travel component of our work is by far the biggest source of emissions as we do work in Sub Saharan Africa and India and those long-haul flights triple our annual emissions from all other aspects of our business. We’ve reduced all we can, so this is an opportunity to take a holistic approach to flying.

(Energy consultant, 25 employees, pre-2020 commitment in Climate Perks)

We do have to travel for work, and we have a policy that any work-related travel is offset and we’re cutting [travel] down as much as possible by doing a lot of stuff on Teams or Zoom. But [Climate Perks] was almost like an extension of that, if you like, sort of recognizing that staff travel in their own time, and that a European holiday might be easier to change than a business trip to remote community in Burma [Myanmar]

(Charity, 90 employees, pre-2020 commitment to Climate Perks)

There is both cause for hope and caution in these findings. On one hand, there is evidence to suggest that Climate Perks contributes to extending the boundaries of responsibility for consumption practices. Given the close relationship between air travel and work, this extension is worthwhile and Climate Perks demonstrative of the widened scope for action on climate change when more usual boundaries of responsibility are set aside. However, in these examples, Climate Perks provides compensation for emissions associated with business travel that employers’ presently find more difficult to reduce. Meeting climate change commitments requires emissions are reduced in every aspect of the routine and organisational practice (Creutzig et al., 2022), and there is a risk that Climate Perks could be used to offset business travel rather than reduce flying in absolute terms. Business travel, particularly for office-based businesses, is likely a large contribution to operational emissions (Hoolohan et al., 2021), and efforts to reduce vacation travel must not distract from reducing business travel. Consideration of a wider package of actions to detach working practices from high-carbon mobility practices would be worthwhile to complement and further the impact of Climate Perks.

Conclusion

Climate Perks prompts valuable reflection on the scope of sustainability interventions. By targeting employers and employees, Climate Perks moves beyond the a-relational and a-social approaches that dominate the landscape of sustainable consumption (Welch & Southerton, 2019). By recognising the multiple roles people play in shaping demand, and the contingency of mobility practices on temporal commitments involved in employment, Climate Perks positions employers as having a role in social change that sets it apart from many initiatives. The impact of Climate Perks on emissions nevertheless remains dependent on individuals altering mobility practices. Furthermore, as Climate Perks offers an incentive to those who are already sufficiently privileged to travel, it raises questions about the ethics involved in intervening in the consumption practices of the global elite (Hopkinson & Cairns, 2021). The following paragraphs conclude by reflecting on these findings and remaining questions.

Climate Perks demonstrates the value of positive action to enable sustainable consumption. The findings show how Climate Perks contributes to catalysing and mainstreaming low-carbon travel by enabling people that would not otherwise travel by land to do so. Though uptake is limited, participation is diverse, with participants ranging in age, income, and the nature of the trip (purpose, destination, duration and travel companion), and the emission reduction resulting from even a small number of trips is substantial. Climate Perks provokes conversations with travel companions and other travellers that contribute to widening participation in surface travel. In terms of trip numbers alone, Climate Perks enabled 21 respondents claimed travel days for trips that resulted the avoidance of between 5.1 and 9.1 tonnes CO₂. These figures do not indicate the full impact of Climate Perks, only the impacts of trips reported in this study. Further research to estimate the total impact would be worthwhile. There are multiple sources of uncertain in the reported values. Nevertheless, these figures are provided to illustrate the substantial benefit of even a small number of substitutions. for a small number of travellers. Furthermore, for most participants in this research, surface travel substituted a flight to the same destination. Given that flying enables access to considerably more destinations, were such an initiative to be scaled up the effect may be greater, as journeys to more distant locations become substituted for less distant locations.

Climate Perks is personally transformative for travellers, enabling the accrual of companions, experiences and resources that support further participation in surface travel. The findings show that by enabling participation in low-carbon travel, Climate Perks contributes to the circulation of ideas on appropriate destinations and the attenuation of knowhow to get to them. The experiences gained while travelling by land help to unsettle ideas about the relative ease of different travel modes and undermine the dominant idea that the vacation experience is best achieved by speeding the transition from the origin to the destination. While the reciprocal development of aviation infrastructure, tourism infrastructure and marketing impede surface travel, experiments in surface travel nevertheless contribute to unlearning decades of familiarity with air travel and lays the foundations for future low-carbon mobility. Demand shifting is complex, so alongside financial mechanisms to disincentivise flying (eg taxes and levees), there is value in initiatives that engage in the wider elements that sustain flying as a practice, and those that could contribute to catalysing and normalising surface travel.

The data presented in this paper serving to remind of the importance of social relationships and connectedness of everyday practices as well as how agency for mobility transitions is distributed within a system of provision currently organised to sustain air travel. That said, the capacity for initiatives like Climate Perks to disrupt systems of provision and consumerism that sustain air travel demand are limited. Therefore, shifting demand continues to rely on the cumulative extraordinary effort of individuals (and their companions). To avoid delegating responsibility for decarbonisation to individual travellers—a strategy that would require an unprecedented adoption of pro-environmental behaviour and still not promise to counteract societal developments that drive consumerism—more is still required and from many other actors. As an employee benefit scheme, Climate Perks is only available to employees of the businesses that offer the scheme and not all employees use the initiative and given the unevenness of flying it is unlikely that all employees would fly in any given year. Consequently, there is a point at which increased participation yields smaller mitigation benefits. Based on the data collected in this study, this point has yet to be reached, and low participation suggests the paid journey days alone are insufficient to overcome the multiple factors that normalise and prioritise flying. Further research that examines reasons for non-participation would valuably increase understanding in this area and contribute to extending participation.

The findings tentatively suggest that Climate Perks has found traction in a moment of change occurring post-Covid wherein (some) organisations are reflecting on the boundaries of “corporate social responsibility” and the extent of their responsibility for emissions amid a wider greening of the employment market. Further research could valuably contribute to uncovering more about how Covid-19 has unsettled boundaries between work and non-work practices from the employer perspective and what potential this could offer for sustainability. The findings presented here suggest that Climate Perks is being used to extend beyond the more familiar remit of employer action on climate change. For many organisations, once having reduced energy use for space heating, travel (including international business travel) and appliance use, there are likely to be few discrete activities that result in more emissions than those resulting from employees’ cumulative vacation travel. There is potential here for adaptations and additions to guidance on organisational greenhouse gas emission reporting that could enable a wider range of organisations to consider their influence on employee practices, and how they might support a wider transformation towards sustainability beyond the organisational boundary.

Finally, Climate Perks raises interesting questions about the ethics of positive action on climate change. Flying is deeply uneven, and Climate Perks offers an additional benefit to people already sufficiently privileged to pay for surface travel and take a vacation. This tension was recognised by some respondents who expressed concerns that the lack of employee engagement with the scheme could be because surface travel, and vacations in general, remain unaffordable to many employees. From an emissions-focussed perspective on climate action, Climate Perks is beneficial, supporting a shift away from air-travel and the financial burden remains with the traveller. It adds an alternative avenue for achieving change. However, given that affluence, consumption and emissions are entangled, there is an important and timely discussion to be had regarding the ethics and boundaries around positive action for sustainable consumption. A worthwhile starting point would be to consider how to effectively distribute the benefits of demand shifting to those who do not participate in high-carbon consumption practices to begin with?

Acknowledgement

With thanks to Possible for partnering with CAST and enabling this research to take place, to four anonymous reviewers for their contributions, and to Joe Blakey for support interpreting the University of Manchester Travel Calculator.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (via the Centre for Climate Change and Social Transformations [CAST]), Grant/Award Number: ES/S012257/1 and supported by Possible through a partnership agreement within CAST.