As part of its corporate social responsibility program, Silicon Valley security solutions firm Symantec has established a green employee commuting program, grown use of remote conferencing and taken steps to bring sustainability elements to procurement and report carbon emissions at the travel point of sale.
The National Business Travel Association in March recognized Symantec with its first travel buyer Corporate Social Responsibility award, presented to director of corporate responsibility Cecily Joseph and vice president of global operations John Sorci, whose responsibilities include travel management.
Although "a lot is being overshadowed by the economic downturn," said Joseph, Symantec sees CSR as a bottom-line issue. "In some instances, it helps the company save money. Our packaging is more sustainable--smaller, lighter and recyclable--and we're finding cost savings through energy efficiency in our data centers. There's also a huge employee piece here as far as getting employees and retention. I can't tell you how many have said, 'This is why I'm working at this company.' "
While energy use and product packaging together are bigger drivers, employee business air travel in fiscal 2008 accounted for about 54,000 metric tons of carbon emissions--or 31 percent the company's total--as reported to the Carbon Disclosure Project.
Symantec's IT organization in September 2007 installed Hewlett-Packard's Halo Collaboration Studios in eight locations in Asia, the United Kingdom and the United States "to facilitate increased levels of face-to-face collaboration without requiring increases in company travel," according to its CDP report.
More are planned, said Sorci, who noted that the locations were chosen based on travel demand. "We're encouraging people to utilize other tools and travel as a last resort," he said. "In the quarter ending in December, we put out word that travel should be done for customer face-to-face visits, and company meetings should be minimized. We canceled a large conference in Las Vegas for 5,000 to 6,000 people in our sales and marketing organization, and are looking to do a virtual version of that."
Sorci acknowledged that it's difficult to determine return on investment with telepresence. "We have tried to determine how much that has reduced our travel. The biggest part is less demand. We're going to do a questionnaire to ask if it's something they used instead of traveling, because it's one of those things where it's hard to know if they would have traveled to do that. It's easy to use." He said the company pays monthly fees for Halo.
Meanwhile, "what we don't have yet is, if you're online with the booking tool, it shows you the amount of carbon on each flight," said Sorci. Right now, "It's pretty generic--say on San Francisco-Denver, you have the same carbon for every flight regardless or aircraft. It's still in the development stages." Symantec's U.S. travel management program is outsourced to American Express, but overseen along with European and Asia-Pacific programs by global travel manager John McGoun.
From a procurement perspective, Sorci said, Symantec is beginning to incorporate sustainability into supplier relationships, largely because corporate customers are doing the same. "I wouldn't say that's consistent throughout our supply chain, but we're seeing it requested by our customers," he said. Asked whether he anticipates sustainability as a criterion in travel supplier selection, Sorci said, "I'm not sure it will be a real differentiator. It's one of those things where you ask the question, and yet it's not to the point where you say, 'We're not going to go with you.' "
Meanwhile, Joseph said carbon offsetting is not on the table at the moment. "We're really looking at changing our practices to be more efficient," she said. "We don't want to buy our way out of this problem."
The company's nearly three-year-old San Francisco Bay Area "cool commuting" program encourages cycling and carpooling, and provides employees a free shuttle bus between rail stations and corporate campuses. Symantec credits the program for reducing annual auto trips by 11 percent and vehicle miles traveled by 9 percent.
Symantec in May 2008 adopted a goal of reducing by 15 percent its carbon emissions by the end of fiscal 2012. Sorci, Joseph and other colleagues are members of a committee that is "directly accountable to the CEO for its actions and progress" on this goal. They provide quarterly updates to the CEO and periodic updates to the board of directors.