Any fears that sustainability might fall
off travel managers’ agenda amid the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic appear to be
unfounded.
While interest – and positive actions –
around sustainability was gaining momentum 12 years ago, a global recession
triggered in 2008 saw many corporates park efforts to mitigate their
environmental impact. There have been fears that the Covid-19 pandemic could
prompt a similar scenario.
In the years since that economic turmoil,
however, the urgent need to prevent further damage to our planet has become
even more acutely obvious and, for the most part, its populous is listening to
the irrefutable evidence. Indeed, in 2018 and 2019, teenager Greta Thunberg
became a flagbearer for tackling climate change while the idea of ‘flygskam’,
or flight shaming, emerged from Scandinavia amid a shift from air to rail
travel within the region.
There was barely a business travel
conference in 2019 where sustainability did not prominently feature and at the
Business Travel Show in London in February this year, as Covid-19 crept across
the globe, every buyer and supplier I met with was adamant sustainability was
no longer something that could be set aside, no matter what came along.
That conviction now appears well-founded.
A number of TMCs have introduced enhanced environmental facilities in recent
months, including the CWT Solutions Group’s launch this week of ECO, a
responsible travel consulting framework.
Priot to that, we’ve seen TravelPerk add
carbon offsetting capabilities, American Express Global Business Travel
introduce a filter that allows users of its Neo booking tool to rank flight and
rail journey search results by their associated carbon emissions, and the
Advantage Travel Partnership sign a deal with Thrust Carbon to help customers
assess and offset their travel-related emissions.
Crucially, all these developments have
been delivered ‘in response to customer demand’, as the saying goes.
“Ten years ago people wondered what you
were talking about if you asked how to measure your carbon footprint,” said
Bernard Harrop, managing director at IG Management during a breakout session at
last week’s Business Travel Show America. “There’s been a lot of progress since
then but there’s still a lot to do.”
The temporary halt of business travel is
enabling corporates to revisit travel policies and programmes and build
sustainability in from the ground up. And there has of course been the side
effect that carbon emissions from business travel have plummeted.
In normal circumstances, 80 per cent of
KPMG’s carbon emissions are derived from business travel, but “Covid has been a
catalyst,” said another speaker, Raquel Hefferan, director, travel head, strategic sourcing and
travel operations. “We have achieved our 2020 carbon goals already simply
because we’ve not been travelling, but it doesn’t stop there.”
Hefferan said sustainability remains a
“top priority. It impacts everything we do and how we do it. It’s not something
that can be set aside. My concern is that, now goals for 2020 have been met,
how are we going to continue improving? What are our goals for 2030 and 2050?”
The organisation is considering an
environmental certification system for its suppliers and the introduction of a
number of new sustainability criteria in its RFPs.
In the meantime, Hefferan bemoaned the
quality of information about carbon impact provided in booking tools. “I want
to see what my impact is going to be at the time of booking, but those sources
aren’t reliable.”
That was a sentiment shared by fellow
speaker Johnny Thorsen, VP strategy
and innovation,
American Express Digital Labs: “The booking tools
today are not really doing a great job of bringing that information to the
forefront.”
He continued: “If you want to drive change you need to move emissions information
right up front so the minute you look at availability for flights or hotels you
also see what’s left of your [company’s] carbon budget.
“At the end of a trip I want to see an
instant total emissions report as part of my expense report. I am convinced the
number of trips we take every year will go down, Covid or not. And now we have an environment of virtual
meetings so we’ll see a smaller industry footprint overall.”
Thorsen also cautioned about the use of
carbon offsetting schemes. “Reducing your impact comes first, then it’s about
offsetting. We’re in the early stages of an unstandardised environment with so
many different ways of doing things and with no standards, so how do you plan
that into a corporate framework?
“Ask your
TMC for the logic behind their calculations. A lot of them are using old
formulas. And if you’re offsetting, find out how big a share of your offset
money they keep. There’s a big lack of transparency in the offset market.”
Asked what takes precedence right now,
price, duty of care, or sustainability, Sarah Mah Ming, business manager, travel,
meetings and events at EY, said they can’t be ranked. “They’re all part of a
bigger picture and you have to look at them all together.”
She continued: “When Covid happened we
learned something really valuable – that we can work very differently. Now
we’re using this opportunity to drive those sustainability initiatives.”
The organisation’s default position is
to question whether a physical meeting is actually necessary, or if it could be
conducted via a virtual offering “with the same desired outcome”, and then to
combine meetings in “multipurpose” trips to avoid unnecessary flights and
travel.
Mah Ming said a number of the booking
tools used by EY around the world incorporate carbon impact information at the
time of booking but a carbon reporting dashboard is “how we’re really going to
change behaviour”, she explained.
“We believe
in very transparent communication with our travellers about their carbon impact
and the choices they make, so quarterly we share a dashboard that includes each
travellers’ emissions from their trips and that puts sustainability top of
mind.”
As Harrop said: “Sustainability is about
the balance between people, planet and profit. It’s about carbon impact, but
also ethics, wellbeing and duty of care. When companies consider all these
together they achieve massive increase in value, not just in share price but in
value to the organisation, to employees and to customers.
“Education is so important. It’s the only
way to make it work. I’ve seen tremendous sustainability programmes at big
organisations but sometimes there’s been no engagement and it’s not gone
anywhere. We all need to act now.”