France: Orange to implement new mobility plan for travel to work

The new mobility plan for the period 2021-2024, signed by the management of French telecommunications group Orange and the trade unions CFDT, FO and SUD, will enter into effect from 1 January 2022. Its aim is to significantly increase the number of employees using clean means of transport, public transport aside. In order to encourage staff to adopt new, more “sustainable” travel habits, and to “increase from 5% to 15% the percentage of employees using clean transport, public transport excluded, (i.e. 36% overall when all clean transport means are included) from the first year of the agreement”, the new mobility plan broadens the range of measures proposed and includes a sustainable mobility payment of up to €400 per year, which is tax-free and exempt from social security contributions for the employee and the company. Under the scheme, taking one’s own bicycle (including electric bicycles) as well as scooters and electric scooters (either owned or rented) to get to work are deemed clean means of transport. However, the main thrust of the agreement is to foster greater use of carpooling. All employees who “effectively, regularly or occasionally, use carpooling for journeys into work, whether as a passenger or driver” are eligible for the sustainable mobility payments. Staff may carpool with their Orange colleagues as well as with people from outside the company, registered on specialised platforms. To this end, the company has signed an agreement with a national carpooling company so that those seeking empty seats can be put in contact more easily with nearby drivers.