Mike McCormick
Organizers of one education session at the National Business Travel Association convention in Houston solicited from attendees ideas about how the federal government and its suppliers could reduce travel-related carbon emissions without necessarily cutting travel. Participants reproduced a number of ideas including listing fuel efficiency in booking tools, reduced rates for hybrid cars, traveler incentives for greener options, carpooling, public transport, car sharing, hybrid buses, rail, carbon performance criteriain supplier selection, hotel property certifications, remote conferencing, reduced paper, traveler-specific carbon budgets, increased regional rather than long-distancemeetings, carbon offsetsand reduced connecting flights. The "crowd-sourcing" idea was a response to NBTA's reaction to the White House's July announcement of a targetfor a 13 percent reduction in greenhouse gas pollution by 2020, including travel and employee commuting. NBTA called the administration "misguided" and announced it was "concerned this unilateral action could undermine the slight recovery the travel industry is just now starting to experience." The White House statements, according to NBTA executive director and COO Mike McCormick, "seem to imply that cutting travel is the goal. The goal should be to use travel as cost-effectively as possible to meet the needs of the United States. Instead of unilateral cuts, I encourage government agencies to reach out to the industry and learn how to properly manage travel and 'green' their travel system." According to McCormick, whose related comments to Management.travelfollow, NBTA had attempted to get more details about the statement from the White House, to no avail. Officials with the United States Travel Association said the same, and both emphasized that the White House making such a generalization about travel reductions is damaging and different from a corporation doing so, because of the power of the president. Obama's "pattern" of "anti-travel" comments, McCormick said, dates to early 2009 when he said executives with companies that were bailed out by taxpayers should not "go take a trip to Las Vegas or go down to the Super Bowl on the taxpayers' dime." McCormick last month said NBTA is "frustrated with it, and we think there's a better way it can be done. We felt we needed to make a strong statement, and we did."
The July 2010 White House statement included one sentence regarding emissions and travel. Is there more detail about what they put out that you were commenting on or was it just that?
It was that, but I think it's due to a pattern of comments. If this were one comment taken in context of a supportive administration from the last year and a half, you may stop and pause and think of it differently, or at least stop and pause. The issue now is we have seen a pattern of an anti-travel, anti-meeting kind of mentality coming from the White House, so when you see comments like this, it's frustrating because it shows us it's not that you're trying to spend tax dollars more efficiently. It should be about managing our taxpayer money better and applying travel management techniques and disciplines to government travel--but not in the context of unilaterally cutting travel expenditure or saying that "Travel is bad." That's the problem and struggle we have. There doesn't seem to be an awareness about the importance of the industry and the return on investment of spending money on travel, and we have seen it time and time again.
NBTA said the White House statement implies that cutting travel is the goal in and of itself, and instead the goal should be to use travel as cost-effectively as possible. How do you know that the White House is not going to be as cost-effective as possible in travel management?
That's the problem--we don't. We had our government travel event, the National Travel Forum in Orlando, at the end of June. We had 1,100 people there, [including] the first graduating class from our CGTE education program, and we heard from them that [the government] folks are starving for more tools ... they're starving for more support to better manage taxpayer money for travel expenditures. [These are] people who are really out there trying to raise their game, and then you hear vague statements like this. There seems to be such a disconnect between the statements and the policy and the reality on this issue, and it's frustrating. Vague statements can be very dangerous, if not put in context of what it means to the industry and what it means to the government employees who are out there trying to do the right thing in terms of how they manage travel dollars.
NBTA praised the White House's 2011 budget, in which the federal government detailed planned cuts in travel expenditures for the various federal agencies. So there does seem to be some detail out there in terms of how the federal government is trying to reduce travel and the carbon footprint. To call their statement "misguided" seems pretty aggressive, considering that it may be really just a matter of them not getting back to you on the details. What is it about the White House's statement that was "unilateral"?
Just like we have seen in the corporate environment in the past couple years--where the attitude from Corporate America was, "I need to cut travel. I'm going to keep people home." And part of the economic decisions companies were making was to cut travel budgets as a way to reduce cost, which further depressed the economy and their businesses. Travel has a proven ROI. Back to reaction: Apart from the reaction from us as an association, [the reaction] from our membership is really strong. Any time you make statements about cutting travel unilaterally, saying, "We're just going to cut," not "Find ways to be more efficient, spend dollars better, get more from my travel budget, eliminate or look for ways to reduce spoilage on travel dollars"--all those things are healthy approaches to the issue at hand. When you talk about making unilateral cuts and just say, "We need to cut and we'll figure out how to do it later" and wrap it up in a green initiative, we have concerns. In the travel industry, we should have concerns and we're not the only association that reacted this way. We're trying to send a clear message, saying there are ways to do it the right way and statements like this can be damaging to the world's largest industry.
NBTA gave an award to Symanteclast year for its travel management initiatives on environmental sustainability, and one of Symantec's goals was to reduce emissions by 15 percent by the end of 2012. How is that different from the White House's goal?
We are very supportive of green initiatives. We have a corporate social responsibility awardgoing out again this year. We are spending a lot of time and energy on that issue. In this case, again, [it's] back to the very specific situation with a series, and a history with the administration of being less than positive about travel and the travel industry. You have to put it in that context.
So it's different if it's the White House because the administration is part of the public policy machine, so they're leading by example has a lot of influence?
It certainly does. Look at the devastating effectthe "meetings are bad" rhetoric had. When we surveyed our members, corporations were purposely delaying or not scheduling meetings because they were afraid of the perception, just because of the White House commentary and rhetoric. So we are very sensitive to it. It's not about having a plan and executing on it, or the broad initiatives they're stating. It's about the fact that without giving specifics about how they were going to do it, referencing travel and cutting travel as part of the plan with no detail is very concerning for is because, yes, it does shape policy just at a time when we're beginning to see a little bit of recovery and when companies are beginning to say, "I'm willing to invest in travel again" without any stigmas attached to it. And now here we are, so are we sensitive to comments? Yes we are, because it can have a very devastating effect on the industry.