The CWT Solutions Group has launched a new travel consulting framework designed to help clients look beyond cost and compliance to craft a managed travel program that considers its effects on the environment and traveler well-being.
The new offering, dubbed Eco—an acronym for Employee well-being, Climate impact and Organizational performance—is an "avenue through which companies can simultaneously create an engaged and motivated workforce, reduce their environmental impact and manage costs more effectively", according to the CWT Solutions Group, which is mega travel management company CWT's consulting division.
The new framework will help corporates review travel policy and source and manage suppliers, as well as aiding with change management and reporting and insights, according to the company.
CWT Solutions Group said it has partnered with Atmosfair to provide more granular detail about the environmental impact of business travel programs, established a supplier evaluation matrix, and is in the process of developing a traveler happiness index to help inform policies around wellbeing and duty of care.
"Corporate travel programs have traditionally revolved around cost and compliance as the key metrics. But leading up to the pandemic, sustainability was becoming increasingly important and then, of course, employee well-being shot to the top of the priorities," said CWT Solutions Group senior director Richard Johnson.
"Eco takes the triple bottom line – people, profit and planet – and applies it to business travel programs. They are three points of a triangle and more companies are trying to balance them out. We know it's possible to consider the wellbeing of employees and minimize environmental impact without sacrificing savings."
Johnson said CWT Solutions Group is attracting particular interest from customers in the professional services, engineering, banking, e-commerce and energy and resources sectors ahead of a return to business travel.
"We're expecting significant take-up," he said. "We've already put in a number of RFPs on behalf of clients across different industries looking at reducing their environmental impact or improving well-being or striking that balance."
Its supplier evaluation matrix assesses airlines' average age of aircraft, use of biofuels, and policies on waste management and single-use materials, among other elements, while emissions calculations cover direct versus indirect flights, variations in emissions at different altitudes, ticket class and time of travel—assessing whether aircraft will be idling on runways or circling on arrival for longer at certain times of day, for example.
For accommodation, the group is in the process of finalizing a methodology with CWT's RoomIt platform.
Meanwhile, its traveler well-being metrics include days of departure and return, hours spent travelling, trip length, class of travel, productivity, travel disruption, hotel ratings and fatigue.
Originally published in BTN Europe.