SASMob final conference – The future of commuting to work
SASMob, Smart Alliance for Sustainable Mobility project was financed by Urban Innovative Actions Programme and lasted from 2017 until January 2022. The project focused on developing a city-wide alliance of employers to encourage employees for sustainable commuting. It was based of the idea of Movability from Austin, Texas.
The project has faced many challenges among which the most crucial and the most influential was the lockdown due to the Covid19 pandemic, which required and prompted companies to change their working arrangements. Working together, side by side with the local municipality, the private and public companies realized their own share of responsibility and initiated new services and offered new incentives to employees to encourage sustainable commuting.
Sustainable commuting is everyone’s responsibility, it is the personal choice of the employee, which could be supported by the employer and enabled by the local government. Thus sharing the responsibility of our personal choices, recognising everyone’s share in the circumstances and bringing commuting under corporate welfare/health care services/tasks can bring multiple benefits.
Public officials are often late to bring in new legislation, because they feel a lack of public support, while companies run long-established benefit schemes which favor individual vehicle commuting which are difficult to withdraw.
However working together, building up new schemes, offering new micro-mobility options can lead to a renewed joint commitment to more healthy cities.
For the occasion of the Final Conference of the project we would like to share our experiences with other European cities and thus we are organising a side event for the EWRC initiative.
We would like to open up a discussion with private and public companies, politicians and HR managers to re-consider working arrangements and commuting options in the post-Covid era, hopefully leading to more sustainable urban life.
The discussion is relevant for many municipalities across Europe and also for the Conference on the Future of Europe agenda , since the dialogue is centered around participation, recognized own interests and finding win-win situations for both employers, employees and for the cities in which they live and function. The most relevant stream of topic is: Sustainable mobility within using resources effectively for a circular economy within Climate change and the environment.
The workshop will be held in English, online on the 10th of November, 2021 between 9.30-11-30am CET, organised by the Municipality of Szeged, Hungary Civitas Legacy Award holder from 2018. The workshop will be part of EWRC side event series.
Participation at the event is free of charge, but registration is compulsory by 05.11.2021.
Please click here to register.