Thrust Carbon has launched a new forecasting tool designed to help clients reach their carbon-reduction goals based on their live emissions data.
The NetZero Forecaster sits inside the Thrust Calculator and lets companies see the impact of various policy changes on meeting their carbon goals, said Tan Strehler-Weston, Thrust Carbon's head of operations and policy. For example, they can hypothesize a policy change in business-class allowance or use of rail in lieu of short-haul flights as well as the timing of that policy change, and the tool can show the impact of that change.
Users also can model the impact of choosing more fuel-efficient routes and aircraft, reducing travel or the cost and impact of purchasing sustainable aviation fuel.
With those forecasts, travel managers can find the "least painful way" of meeting their carbon reduction targets, Strehler-Weston said.
With the integration to a company's live emissions data, the results are specific to a program, he said. If a program already has most travelers flying in economy class, for example, the business-class policy change would have less impact than it would for a company with a high rate of business-class use.
"It's a dynamic forecasting tool," he said. "You don't need to rebuild the tool every year as the travel program changes."
The tool also has the capability of factoring in larger industry shifts, such as airlines adding more fuel-efficient aircraft. "If you're a travel manager, you don't have time to look into those things, and you don't know whether your consultants will do that for you," Strehler-Weston said.
Thrust Carbon today is switching on the forecasting tool for a handful of early-access clients, who will provide feedback, and it then will be more widely available as an add-on to the calculator tool, he said. It currently is in "sandbox mode" for users to test and play with, and Thrust Carbon plans to continue adding more levers for policy options and make it more customizable while keeping it simple enough for the average travel manager to use, he said.
Ultimately, the idea is to introduce more automation in the tool in forecasting carbon-reduction strategies. "We'd like to work out what more the platform can do to guide people, where it can read net zero goals and say these are the strategies to reach those goals," Strehler-Weston said.