Daly City's Green Vision - City of Daly City

Appendix C:
Employee Commute
Emissions from employee commutes make up an important optional source of emissions from any local
government’s operations. The scale of emissions from employee commutes is often large in comparison with many
other facets of local government operations, and local governments can affect how their employees get to and from
work through a variety of incentives. For this reason, ICLEI recommends estimating emissions from employee
commutes as part of a complete government operations greenhouse gas emissions inventory.
To assist in the data collection process, ICLEI provided the jurisdictions with both an online and a paper copy of an
employee commute survey.21 The questions in the survey were aimed at finding three categories of information:
Activity data to calculate emissions from employee commute (vehicles miles traveled, vehicle type,
vehicle model year) both current and in 2005.
Indicator data to help Daly City understand how much time and money employees spend as they
commute, as well as how many employees use alternative modes of transportation to get to work.
Policy data that will serve as guidance for Daly City as it adopts policies aimed at reducing emissions
from employee commutes. These questions asked employees for their interest in alternative modes of
transportation as well as what policies would be most effective in allowing them to switch modes of
transportation away from driving alone.
This section provides the emissions estimation methodology and both surveys. Individual survey results are in the
possession of Daly City staff.
C.1 Methodology Summary
The methodology for estimating the employee commute emissions portion of the inventory is similar to the mobile
emissions methodology outlined in the mobile emissions section of Appendix B. Daly City administered the
employee commute survey to 811 current employees working for the City, and 161 employees responded to the
survey (a response rate of 20 percent). The survey was administered in 2008 and current data was used as a proxy
for 2005 data. Both full time and part-time employee data were included.
21 The paper survey was administered only to employees that do not have access to a computer. The survey asked slightly different questions
but was aimed at garnering the same emissions and policy-relevant data as the electronic survey.
2005 Daly City Government Operations Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory XV