ACTE Opposes Green Tax, Names Booz Allen's Weeks President-Elect

The Association of Corporate Travel Executives yesterday announced its opposition to the emergence of green taxes that are not used for investing in infrastructure improvements or reductions in carbon emissions. Separately, the organization announced it had named travel buyer and former travel management consultant Douglas Weeks, global sourcing manager for consulting firm Herndon, Va.-based Booz Allen Hamilton, as it president-elect.

AirPlus president and CEO Richard Crum, who recently began his two-year term as ACTE president, voiced ACTE's opposition to recent green taxes at the opening session of ACTE's Global Conference in Munich.

"It is very difficult to justify the logic that implementing green taxes will minimize the impact that travel has on the environment, particularly when you look at the taxes that have been put in place so far," Crum told reporters this morning. "None of the money has been put into improving infrastructure that is going to have an impact on reducing airline fuel burn."

Crum said estimates show that an efficient worldwide air traffic control system would reduce fuel burn by 10 percent to 15 percent. He also said the business travel industry, including hotels, airlines and aircraft manufacturers, clearly has stepped up voluntarily.

"History shows us that green taxes will not minimize demand," Crum said. "There won't be any reduction in travel as a result. In fact, forecasts show that travel will increase."

He added that taxes deplete the resources individuals or companies might put into other corporate social responsibility initiatives and create additional industry cost pressures. "If governments want to make a dent in what the United Nations has estimated is 2 percent of the world's carbon emissions that are generated from air travel, the real opportunity is to fund air traffic management improvements," he said.

He suggested that rather than creating taxes that create revenue and constrain industry growth, governments should provide incentives for change, including emissions-trading programs. Therefore, Crum said ACTE is "adamantly opposed to any type of green tax that is not going to be part of the process to make a difference in travel's impact on the environment."

Crum said ACTE soon will announce details about a specific initiative that will it undertake "to ensure that our industry has a collective voice in educating governments that are considering or implementing green taxes."