Jenna Brown

In line with its commitment to becoming a zero-emission mobility platform in the UK by 2030, Uber knows that this goal can only be achieved through collaboration. Part of this involves doing all it can to ease the challenges faced by its drivers when it comes to EV adoption.

Leveraging her experience of more than a decade at Uber to help make this happen is Jenna Brown, Head of Uber for Business UK. Although traditionally seen by many as a consumer-facing company, Jenna has played a big part in its B2B expansion in recent years, shifting the way Uber thinks as a company.

Uber for Business is a platform for companies to manage their global rides and meals, giving organisations more control of and deeper insights into their operations. It provides a seamless employee travel experience as well as focusing on sustainability — part of Uber’s overall mission to become a zero-emission platform by 2030 in Europe. 

With Uber for Business specifically helping companies take action against air pollution and travel-related emissions, Jenna sits down with Energy Digital to discuss Uber’s path to be fully electric by 2040 —, for all rides to be emission free by 2025 in London specifically — and its other pursuits to encourage EV adoption, improve energy efficiency and reduce emission production.

Q. How has the growing emphasis on sustainability influenced the priorities and strategies of Uber for Business UK, particularly in terms of corporate travel solutions?

We are a big believer in increased transparency and we need to lead by example. We publish our climate impact and assessment reports — which includes Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions — every year and share an annual ESG report that includes that data. For us, it's not just about sharing data, though, it's about making sure that we've really clearly committed and communicated those sustainability goals and the progress against those. 

We partner with our clients really closely to help them find ways to educate their employees about sustainability and how they can actually promote the usage of sustainability products. 

Uber for Business aligns with the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), helping more than 1,700 organisations track and verify their plans to reduce greenhouse emissions via sustainability insights within our dash.

We are really focused on matching our energy consumption with renewable energy investments and leading by example and putting our money where our mouth is, which I think is really important. 

Q. What specific initiatives or innovations has Uber for Business UK implemented to support corporate clients in reducing their carbon footprint through transportation choices?

In addition to providing the option of EVs on our platform, for Uber for Business specifically, the biggest thing that we've done is develop the sustainability insights dashboard. It launched at the end of 2022 and helps bridge the gap between offering transparency and visibility into some of our clients’ carbon footprint and enabling them to make meaningful reductions based on that data. 

There's a sustainability insights tab that allows travel managers and sustainability managers — who we find using it the most — to track CO2 emissions for every trip at whatever level they prefer. That then helps provide clear, actionable insights, whether that's for reporting or steering the business and meeting internal sustainability goals while keeping costs low at the same time. 

We do this because we know proper ESG reporting can be incredibly resource intensive. This is just one way to centralise ground transportation reporting. We've already had tens of thousands of organisations starting to use this since it launched. 

To me, the most interesting fact that I remember hearing early on was, we launched this in Q4 of 2022 and by Q1 of 2023 —just a few months later — we saw a 32% increase in the number of electric trips on Uber for Business UK. It really shows that when you give people information, they're much more likely to take action. People want to take a more sustainable option.

I think it's the same reason people use a smart watch. When you have access to data, you can then make smarter and more informed decisions. So that 32% increase that we saw in a single quarter was to me the biggest indicator that by providing that data alone, you can steer some of the decisions that people are making.

Q. How is Uber for Business UK leveraging its platform to promote the adoption of EVs and what impact do you anticipate this having on the energy landscape?

Uber Green, in the UK, means all rides are delivered by 100% EVs. Alongside this we also have Uber Comfort Electric and Uber Planet. It takes on different variations, but this is how we enable a company's employees — every rider, in fact — to choose more sustainable transportation options. For us, it's about making sure that that option is front and centre. 

This started in 2016 and is available in more than 120 cities worldwide with our Uber Green products. This is allowing us to pave a way to a more low carbon future, minimising greenhouse gases. The biggest role we play in starting that flywheel is educating drivers about the benefits of EV ownership and making it easier for them to go electric. 

Our recently-announced £5,000 (US$6,390) electric car grant for London drivers — that will obviously help us meet our pledge and get more electric vehicles on the road —will make it easier for drivers to go electric. Right now it's hard, it's expensive, it's maybe even a little stressful. It's the same reason a lot of people generally aren't going electric. We enable exclusive discounts to drivers on a range of electric vehicle models and have partnerships with manufacturers. And with our new package, every driver that's eligible can get £750 (US$960) of free charging with bp pulse.

We also do a lot to help our drivers by educating them about long-term benefits of EV ownership alongside the financial support. This is supported by new additions to the Uber app. In 2023, we added EV charging locations to the driver app to make it a bit more comfortable for them to eliminate the nervousness in switching to an EV. We've done a good job with partners to decrease the cost of charging to decrease the cost of electric vehicles for our partners and drivers. This again is a step we’ve made alongside our commitments to green pricing to make sure that that is always going to be an easy choice for riders. 

London is Uber's global leader for EVs with 25% of all of Uber's miles in London electric today. We'll continue to see progress there, but I think that indicates that our work in this area is well received by riders and drivers. Uber drivers in London are going electric eight times faster than the general public. Seeing that acceleration from drivers is a really good indicator and leads to an acceleration on the rider's side as well. 

Q. Can you share insights into how Uber for Business UK's initiatives contribute to reducing energy consumption and emissions in urban areas? Does data and analytics play a big part here?

We focus a lot on expanding that Uber Green service in key urban areas like London, Paris and Amsterdam, and we've also expanded Uber Green from Zone 1 in London to cover Greater London as well. It's about continuing to expand that offering and where it's available. As a result, Uber is now the biggest platform for on-demand electric travel in London.

Going back to electric car grants for London and UK drivers, it focuses on electric vehicles. We’re trying to accelerate this even further. The other thing that we're doing in London specifically is, in order to drive more transition to EVs — because we're very aware of hesitation on the driver's side — we are investing £5m (US$6.4m) in public electric vehicle chargers in areas with the greatest need. We are also focusing on where a lot of our drivers live to make that transition as easy as possible for a lot of our drivers to then enable that service for riders as well.

Q. Given the increasing importance of energy efficiency in corporate decision-making, how does Uber for Business UK envision its role in helping businesses meet their sustainability targets through transportation choices, particularly in relation to reducing reliance on fossil fuels and promoting cleaner energy alternatives?

It's important to really understand and emphasise the impact of implementing clear ESG reporting. We all know it's becoming increasingly vital, especially in corporate travel, as organisations are seeking to align their travel practises with broader sustainability goals and government requirements as well as what matters to their employees. 

I think it's becoming increasingly important for employees that they're working for a company that has sustainability in mind. By adopting CSR initiatives and implementing clear ESG reporting, a lot of companies can reduce their environmental impact, prove social outcomes, and actually ensure long-term business success and, as I said, I genuinely think this increases employee engagement. We hope — I think everyone does over time — that sustainability  becomes more than a tick box exercise and companies will have sustainability metrics and goals as a core consideration.

Our role is to help enable that at every stage, whether that's from education and awareness to providing data-driven solutions, as well as with our sustainability-focused products that enable those changes to occur. 

We recently did some research around the rise of ESG reporting. We found the majority of UK travel managers, about 89%, say travel is a growing business priority in 2024. So we think we're going to see increased budgets driven by return to office policies, but 61% of those respondents also reported that rising climate concerns are leading to changes in their travel policies. People are recognising the need to change. A further 39% of that group considered ESG reporting a high priority when selecting vendors or partners and I think we'll just see this increase with time. A lot of them are insisting that all partners offer green reporting, which is why our sustainability insights feature is increasingly important. Furthering on from that, 51% of that group predict that ESG requirements for more sustainable travel will actually push up budgets. 

Everyone has to make trade-offs. For us, it's about reducing the trade-offs that the rider or company has to make in order to still push forward sustainability initiatives. This also comes into play when you think about riders and drivers going electric. Clearly, sustainability is on everyone's mind, whether that's being more sustainable or reporting on sustainability, and identifying the role that people have to play in pushing that forward. I’m really excited to see we're making progress and I think we're really pushing in the right places.

Read more from Uber for Business in our e-mobility special report in the latest Energy Digital Magazine - August Edition.

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