TRX this month released new metrics and practices for corporate travel professionals to calculate and offset the carbon emissions caused by air travel, as buyers continue to gauge and implement sustainable travel policies and procurement practices.
Scott Gillespie, vice president and general manager of TRX's Travel Analytics, outlined ways in which travel buyers can minimize carbon emissions by using greener aircraft, avoiding connections, traveling via air alternatives or working with eco-friendly travel suppliers, during a presentation at the Association of Corporate Travel Executives conference in Miami this month.
TRX's Travel Analytics estimated companies seeking to offset emissions would have to spend between 1 percent and 2 percent of ticket costs. "Looking at several large companies that spend north of $80 million a year on air travel, we've seen that their emissions, using a benchmark price of about $15 per ton, is coming at between about 1 percent and 2 percent of their total air spend," said Gillespie.
Although the metric is the first solid benchmark estimating the cost of offsetting air emissions, Gillespie noted it comes with a caveat, as the calculation does not take into account the contentious issue of airline carbon emissions at higher altitude, which could add to true offsetting cost.
Brian Mullis, president of Sustainable Travel International, an advocacy group for eco-friendly travel, said, "Since airlines fly at a higher level in the atmosphere, it's much more difficult to sequester the amount of carbon. We hear critics of global warning say that airline travel is not the main culprit of climate change, that it's really industrial business. That's really not taking into consideration that variable."
Gillespie also said travel managers should be aware of greener options for each trip. For example, using a 600-mile trip sample, trains produce the least amount of emissions—on a per-passenger basis—compared with cars or airplanes. Likewise, "a 1,000 mile one-stop flight emits nearly 50 percent more CO2 than a nonstop flight," Gillespie noted, since airplanes burn the most amount of fuel at takeoff. "When you compare a nonstop flight to a connection, you'll see that a nonstop flight burns less fuel and therefore emits less CO2 than a connecting flight. That's because a connecting flight would have two takeoffs. Also, they'd have to go a slightly longer distance to make that connection."
Gillespie continued: "If you're a travel manager trying to reduce your company's carbon footprint, I'd presume you'd want to minimize unnecessary connections."
Gillespie also noted that the more passengers there are on a plane, the less carbon emissions there are per passenger. Although an aircraft like a Boeing 737 would produce more total emissions than a regional jet traveling the same distance, the 737 would produce 404 pounds of CO2 per passenger while the RJ would emit 543 pounds per passenger, according to Travel Analytics' analysis.
In addition to calculating carbon costs, Gillespie said companies could use corporate social responsibility criteria as part of supplier selection, offer carbon cost information per flight and apply carbon taxes for each flight booked, and participate in offset programs. "We've heard from one company considering applying an internal tax to the business unit for each flight that's booked," Gillespie said, "to help them be more aware of the amount of carbon emitted and associated with travel."
Buyers at a session on sustainable procurement at the ACTE conference made recommendations as to how they can work with suppliers to reduce their carbon footprints by building questions into request for proposals, using consistent measurements in carbon emissions reporting tools, determining viable alternatives to air travel and building initiatives into corporate culture that educate travelers, senior management and other key stakeholders.
Tony Pilcher, head of business travel for HSBC, said his company announced intentions to go carbon-neutral more than two years ago, leaving new challenges in managing travel. In addition to gauging the eco-friendliness of suppliers, Pilcher noted internal policy has made travelers aware of their impact on the environment. "Now we've gone back with a more robust authorization process," he said of a recently implemented policy to curb emissions. "Through that authorization process, people really have to justify and communicate why they're getting on a plane or a train or getting in a car."
Bolstered by corporate-side social responsibility efforts, some travel buyers increasingly are weighing the environmental credentials of particular airlines—and other suppliers—as they negotiate deals.
Michael Hall, global travel manager for Johnson Controls, said travel buyers should be aware of travel suppliers' greenness and weigh it into negotiations. "It's beyond just saying how many destinations they go to or where they hub," he said. "I also want to know what they are doing about modernizing their fleet to the point of being able to reduce their emissions," he said. "I want to make sure it is part of their culture."
Passenger airlines in the past 12 months have emitted up to 560 million tons of carbon dioxide, according to Travel Analytics analysis of scheduled passenger service data, including flight lengths and aircraft type. The top 21 airlines account for about half of emissions created by the global airline industry, Gillespie said.
Proponents of environmental protection have said airlines have done little to curb CO2 emissions and offset the transportation sector's impact on the environment, while some airlines cite efforts to reduce fuel consumption have reduced emissions significantly in recent years
(BTN, Oct. 9, 2006). "Clearly the airlines have every incentive to reduce CO2 emissions," Gillespie said. "It's obvious because they want to burn less fuel—a major expense item. They're naturally aligned with the goal of reducing emissions."
Air Transport Association president and CEO James May last week echoed the sentiment, noting that airlines contribute about 2 percent of domestic greenhouse gas emissions. He said domestic passenger airlines have improved fuel efficiency by 35 percent since 2001. "U.S. airlines have made enormous strides in increasing fuel efficiency and reducing emissions—unrelenting carbon-efficient improvement is business as usual for commercial airlines," May noted.
Yet, environmentalists have encouraged airlines to offer carbon calculators and offset offerings. Delta Air Lines last month said it became first U.S. airline to launch a carbon-offset program. Beginning June 1, Delta customers worldwide purchasing tickets through the carrier's Web site can donate $5.50 for domestic roundtrips and $11 for international roundtrips to The Conservation Fund, which plants trees to offset carbon emissions.
The effectiveness of such programs still is debated, though. Gillespie noted skeptics of carbon-offset schemes said such programs go largely unregulated, therefore making them ripe for fraud. As such, Gillespie said companies seeking a carbon-offset program should source providers in the same way they would any other purchasing category.
"Many of these carbon offset programs funnel their money into tree planting, but those saplings can't possibly do much in terms of taking CO2 out of the air in the first 10 or 20 years of their lives," Gillespie said. "They have to grow until they're big enough to have an impact."
Gillespie added: "You would need a forest of mature trees somewhere the size of France or Texas to scrub the CO2 that is emitted by the global passenger scheduled airline industry in a year."