Greenpeace has said its international programme director will no longer commute to work by plane.

Mike Townsley, head of communications at Greenpeace International, said that Pascal Husting would no longer travel 250 miles from Luxembourg to Amsterdam by plane several times a month, but would take the train instead.

In a statement, Husting said: “To be frank I’m embarrassed, it was a misjudgment, there’s no doubt about it. It was meant to be a temporary arrangement so I could do the job and be with my family because my kids are so young, but that’s not good enough. The job ended up lasting longer than I expected it would, but I should have been taking the train from day one. That’s happening now.”

On Monday, the Guardian revealed details of the flights, which John Sauven, executive director of Greenpeace UK, defended in a blogpost. "As for Pascal’s air travel. Well it’s a really tough one. Was it the right decision to allow him to use air travel to try to balance his job with the needs of his family for a while?"

The group's international executive director, Kumi Naidoo, also defended the the arrangement, saying: “Pascal has a young family in Luxembourg. When he was offered the new role, he couldn’t move his family to Amsterdam straight away. He’d be the first to say he hates the commute, hates having to fly, but right now he hasn’t got much of an option until he can move. He wishes there was an express train between his home and his office, but it would currently be a 12-hour round trip by train.”

Only yesterday Husting told the Telegraph that he would "rather not take" the plane as the alternative was "a 12-hour round trip by train".

"I spend half my life on skype and video conference calls," he said. "But as a senior manager, the people who work in my team sometimes need to meet me in the flesh, that’s why I’ve been going to Amsterdam twice a month while my team was being restructured."

But the organisation now appears to have had a change of heart. Townsley told the Guardian today that Husting had travelled by plane this week as it was already booked and paid for, "but from next week on he will take the train."

By UK government calculations, short haul flights are responsible for almost twice the carbon emissions per kilometre travelled as national train journeys. Greenpeace has campaigned against aviation growth because of its contribution to climate change.