Alternatives to the school run

Children in six European countries are working hard to encourage their parents to find alternative ways of taking them to school. Of all car journeys, the hectic school run is probably the most difficult for parents to give up. Yet, since 2003, these children have succeeded in pestering their parents into ditching the car hundreds of thousands of times. No sweets or cash were involved.

Behind this phenomenon lies one apparently powerful incentive: a green sticker in the shape of a footprint. For each journey saved, children receive one footprint, which is stuck in a book. Kindergartens and schools in Italy, Germany, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Austria and the Netherlands collect the books, which are handed on to the Climate Alliance of European Cities, one of the organisations helping to co-ordinate Mobility Week 2006.

"It’s not that the children don’t want to walk, it’s that the parents don’t have the time," explains Ulrike Janssen, a representative of the alliance. "It encourages the competitive aspect. Each child wants to have the most stickers in the class, but at the same time they have to work as a group to reach the target."

Each sticker represents one kilometre of journey saved. This year, the children, aged between four and ten, aim to collect 178,969km, the total distance of a symbolic journey around the world to the 189 countries that have signed up to the Kyoto Protocol. The stickers will be handed over at November’s UN Climate Change Conference in Nairobi, Kenya.

Children are encouraged to go to school on foot or by bike. The alliance provides support for local authorities needing to improve road safety, so that children can travel more independently.

Children in six European countries are working hard to encourage their parents to find alternative ways of taking them to school. Of all car journeys, the hectic school run is probably the most difficult for parents to give up. Yet, since 2003, these children have succeeded in pestering their parents into ditching the car hundreds of thousands of times. No sweets or cash were involved.