Richard Crum, President, Association of Corporate Travel Executives asks the UK government to work far more closely with airlines on green taxes ”Almost three years ago now, the Association of Corporate Travel Executives (ACTE) introduced corporate social responsibility as a major industry initiative.
While a number of organisations followed suit, recognised this paradigm shift and are now taking issues concerning the environment extremely seriously, I can”t help but feel that a few seem to be using this heightened environmental awareness to their own advantage.
We carried out a survey last year which showed that one third of company travel managers would consider terminating the contracts of suppliers with a poor environmental record.
Partially as a result of this research, ACTE and British Airways then decided to host the first ever carbon neutral business travel conference. One of the key purposes of this conference was to urge its members to self-mandate reductions in carbon emissions by making responsible travel choices in order to avoid government enforcement.
Now a year later, our fears have been realised and the Chancellor in the UK has announced an increased green tax on flights. Alistair Darling has proposed a new tax on flights to come in to effect as of 1 November, 2009.
Now, I and all of the members of ACTE fully support any move to reduce greenhouse emissions, but I did find it unusual to discover that no similar announcement had been made on road taxes or fuel duty or other large CO2 contributors.
Furthermore, I recently read an article by The Taxpayers” Alliance, which stated that emissions in 2005 had done damage worth an estimated ”11.7bn, but that green taxes and charges that year had made ”21.9bn.
These stats combined with the government”s unrestrained support of airport expansion plans, leads me to question the credibility and hit back against these so called ”green taxes”.
Unsurprisingly, Ryanair has been front foot in its response and this time I”m inclined to agree. I think the line a Ryanair spokesperson took was that ”The government lied when it proposed to spend the ”1bn raised from doubling APD taxes on the environment. Not a penny has been spent on the environment and they are back stealing more from”passengers”. How far from the truth is this I wonder?
The business travel industry has demonstrated to the world the most responsible action to offsetting carbon. Carriers are switching to the most fuel efficient aircraft, experimenting with bio fuels and instituting massive carbon offsetting programmes. So the question has to be asked, why are we being so heavily penalised?
My personal view is that many of the environmental policies that exist currently are motivated more by a desire to raise funds to fill government deficits rather than a genuine attempt to persuade business travellers (or leisure) to change their flying habits. Beyond anything, the measures that have been employed thus far are significantly lacking in ”carrot” incentives designed to encourage responsible behaviour.
I believe there has been a campaign of misinformation. There is shrill propaganda created which often distracts from some of the more important facts. I wonder how many people realize that Europe”s merchant ships emit around a third more carbon than aircraft do. Currently we seem to be employing knee-jerk gestures which simply won”t solve the problem.
Should we not in fact be addressing the real issue which is inefficient airports and air traffic control? I”m sure those of you who fly regularly will know just how often aircraft are stacked in holding patterns waiting for a landing slot at peak times.
Would a better approach be to commission some research and key responses that will ultimately reduce the carbon-footprint?
My view is currently the British government is working at cross purposes with the airlines. Let”s do something about it.”