The CWT Solutions Group has launched ECO, a new responsible
travel consulting framework designed to help clients look beyond cost and
compliance.
Representing Employee wellbeing, Climate impact and
Organisational performance, the ECO offering is an “avenue through which
companies can simultaneously create an engaged and motivated workforce, reduce
their environmental impact and manage costs more effectively”, says CWT’s
consulting division.
It will help corporates review travel policy and source and
manage suppliers, as well as aiding with change management and reporting and
insights.
It has partnered with Atmosfair to provide more granular
detail about the environmental impact of business travel programmes,
established a supplier evaluation matrix, and is in the process of developing a
traveller happiness index to help inform policies around wellbeing and duty of
care.
“Corporate travel programmes have traditionally revolved
around cost and compliance as the key metrics. But leading up to the pandemic,
sustainability was becoming increasingly important and then, of course,
employee wellbeing shot to the top of the priorities,” says Richard Johnson,
senior director, CWT Solutions Group.
“ECO takes the triple bottom line – people, profit and
planet – and applies it to business travel programmes. They are three points of
a triangle and more companies are trying to balance them out. We know it’s
possible to consider the wellbeing of employees and minimise environmental
impact without sacrificing savings.”
Johnson says the Solutions Group is attracting particular
interest from customers in the professional services, engineering, banking,
e-commerce and energy and resources sectors ahead of a return to business
travel.
“We’re expecting significant take up,” he says. “We’ve
already put in a number of RFPs on behalf of clients across different
industries looking at reducing their environmental impact or improving
wellbeing or striking that balance.”
Its supplier evaluation matrix assesses airlines’ average
age of aircraft, use of biofuels, and policies on waste management and single
use materials, among other elements, while emissions calculations cover direct
versus indirect flights, variations in emissions at different altitudes, ticket
class and time of travel – will aircraft be idling on runways or circling on
arrival for longer at certain times of day, for example.
For accommodation, the group is in the process of finalising
a methodology with CWT’s RoomIt platform.
Meanwhile, its traveller wellbeing metrics include days of
departure and return, hours spent travelling, trip length, class of travel,
productivity, travel disruption, hotel ratings and fatigue.