By Brian Wolff
The focus of Parking Today this month is on sustainability, which is often framed in terms of environmental responsibility: reducing emissions, conserving energy, and implementing green infrastructure. However, true sustainability can transcend environmental concerns to include financial viability and social responsibility. In the parking industry, sustainability might also mean embracing the customer experience to complete a more holistic view of the parking journey to ensure long-term success.
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Parking is a customer-driven industry. Whether it’s a downtown garage, an airport lot, or a university campus, a parking facility exists to serve people. Yet, too often, sustainability initiatives focus solely on infrastructure — such as solar panels, electric vehicle (EV) charging stations, and LED lighting — without considering the human experience.
Parking is for people, not just cars
A truly sustainable parking operation goes beyond infrastructure and extends to the customer experience, rather than merely checking off environmental boxes. For example, integrating smart technology improves energy efficiency and makes parking easier and less stressful for drivers. Real-time parking availability apps reduce unnecessary circling of vehicles, lowering emissions while improving convenience. Well-lit, well-maintained facilities that incorporate green spaces make parking safer and more pleasant while also reducing the heat island effect. Minimizing wait times at the gate when there’s a problem also reduces emissions.
Sustainability shouldn’t feel like an imposition on customers. Instead, it should seamlessly enhance their journey. If customers leave a parking facility feeling frustrated because sustainability initiatives complicate their experience, then the operation has failed in its mission. The key is integrating sustainability in ways that benefit both the environment and the customers, also known as “sustainability plus”!
Beyond the buzzword: what sustainability really means
Sustainability plus initiatives come from a place of authentic concern. Sustainability plus means caring not just about regulations and industry trends but about the human impact parking operations have on communities, customers, and employees.
The plus manifests itself in matters big and small, like ensuring facility designs consider accessibility for all customers, including those with disabilities, parents with strollers, or elderly drivers. It could also be as simple as creating pricing models encouraging sustainable choices, such as discounts for EVs, carpools, or off-peak parking. In many ways, most parking operations are probably already conducting these types of sustainability-friendly actions, without that being the focus of the effort.
When parking operations demonstrate genuine care, customers notice. They feel valued rather than managed. They see the extra mile that sustainability requires as yet another signal that customer experience and corporate responsibility are not just corporate to-do lists or buzzwords. Rather, they are efforts that go above and beyond to create the best experience possible while minimizing an entity’s environmental footprint.
Sustainability is also about financial and social longevity. The most successful parking operations balance sustainability with financial prudence and customer trust. Consider a facility that installs EV charging stations but sets the pricing too high, deterring use. Although the infrastructure investment checks the sustainability box, the lack of customer-friendly execution undermines the facility's sustainability goals.
Social sustainability is equally important. Parking operations are part of the larger urban fabric, influencing traffic patterns, pedestrian safety, and overall city livability. By considering the social effects of parking decisions, such as supporting public transit integration or reducing congestion through smart parking policies, parking leaders contribute to broader sustainability goals.
As we move forward, parking professionals must continue to rethink what sustainability means in our industry. Sustainability is not an isolated initiative. It is a commitment that must be embedded in every aspect of parking operations. It is not just about reducing emissions or meeting the certification standards of Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, the rating system developed by the U.S. Green Building Council to measure a facility’s sustainability and resource-efficiency. Sustainability is about creating parking experiences that are efficient, intuitive, and considerate of both the environment and the people who are parking.
of parking could ultimately be one of the most synergistic changes to sustainability the industry has seen. For example, instead of drivers circling the block or “hunting” for parking, advanced reservations now enable parkers to go directly to their parking place. Digital payment with scan-and-pay or text-to-pay options means customers no longer dwell at the gate to pay. It’s a simple scan-and-go. Finally, as license plate recognition and gateless solutions gain traction, dwell times will be dramatically reduced or eliminated in some cases.
In the end, sustainability and customer experience will not be competing priorities — they will be interdependent. The future of parking belongs to those who can integrate these elements seamlessly, ensuring that sustainability efforts resonate not just in infrastructure but in every customer interaction. As technology continues to enable ever more efficient operations, the big winners will be the customers and the environment, which adds up to sustainability plus.
BRIAN WOLFF is the president & CEO of Parker Technology. He can be reached at brian.wolff@parkertechnology.com or visit www.parkertechnology.com.
