European Buyers Cast Green Eyes On Travel Suppliers
<B> European Buyers Cast Green Eyes On Travel Suppliers</B>
By Amon Cohen
When thrashing out a supplier deal, a travel manager usually asks only two questions: Will it save money for my company and will it improve service for my travelers? Now a small number of travel managers in Europe are asking a third question: Will it save the planet?
Swedish construction and real estate company Skanska has become the latest to adopt an environmentally friendly travel buying policy. Hotels in particular are being scrutinized for their green-ness in matters such as recycling, energy conservation and use of toxic chemicals. Those suppliers with strong environmental strategies will be pushed up the preferred list. Those found wanting may ultimately be removed.
Most of the pressure for change is coming from Scandinavia, the region at the forefront of the world's environmental consciousness. Volvo and IKEA are among those adopting or looking at green travel buying policies but there are signs of interest elsewhere in Europe, such as Anglo-Dutch giant Unilever. The U.K. also is home to cosmetics and toiletries brand Body Shop, arguably the world's most progressive company in the realm of ethical purchasing.
Skanska was stung into adopting a green purchasing policy this year after it built a tunnel with certain controversial chemicals, leading to rioting by environmental campaigners. The new policy extends to the purchase of services as well as materials and travel manager Cathrine Wickerts started her quest in August by sending a questionnaire to all suppliers, inquiring about their environmental management policies. She also furnished a list of products that Skanska does not want its suppliers to use.
The program will take time to build and no suppliers will be punished immediately but, said Wickerts, ''I can forsee that if a hotel does not have a green policy it will not be a supplier to us. This will influence our choice of hotel group from next year.''
However, taking the moral high ground will not always be easy. What will Skanska do, Wickerts said, if an airline with a poor environmental record turns out to be the only one flying to one of the company's key destinations?
Skanska also has manipulated its internal processes to be more environmentally friendly. The company has a fee-based relationship with its agency and passes on the transaction fees to the individual cost centers purchasing the travel. However, it has lowered the internal fee for rail tickets to encourage train travel at the expense of air and automobile. It also has an incentivized deal with Swedish Railways, which pays discounts for increased usage by individual travelers as well as the company as a whole (<I>BTN</I>, July 19).
In addition, Skanska is attempting to encourage the biggest money and environment saver of all: not traveling. Wickerts is rewriting the corporate travel policy instructing travelers to reconsider whether a conference call or videoconferencing could replace a physical meeting, and whether the number of Skanska representatives traveling to the same meeting could be reduced.
Body Shop also finds the benefits of limiting travel are not purely environmental. Head of business ethics and sustainability Nicola Amos believes it is well worth any travel manager's time to investigate adopting an eco-friendly policy. ''When there are environmental efficiencies to be gained, there also are economic efficiencies, so there is always a business case for it,'' she said. ''It doesn't require huge creativity; it is mainly common sense.''
Each year, the company publishes in its annual report exactly how many trips its executives have made and how many miles they traveled by air. Clearly, if those figures rise the following year, it is not necessarily an indication of failure but, said Amos, ''we have an understanding of the potential impact we have on the environment through our traveling, and we look to limit it by measures such as videoconferencing and regional instead of global meetings. The figures enable us to set a benchmark and encourage us to ask if we could have adopted a more efficient approach to travel.''
Like Skanska, employees are encouraged to use public transport, with rail urged in preference to air or private car, and buses or subways in preference to taxis.
Body Shop adopts a systematic approach to screening all suppliers with which it does significant business, including service vendors. They are asked to complete a questionnaire and then, if Body Shop is not satisfied, it may ask independent auditors to probe the supplier further. All employees are provided with buyer guidelines, some of which are obligatory and some of which are preferred. It usually helps Body Shop whittle down to a fairly short list except in the case of the airlines--all of which, of course, are great polluters and consumers of fossil fuel. ''In cases like that we assess how progressive they are in mitigating the effect they have on the environment,'' said Amos. ''We want to see how committed they are to public reporting and setting targets.''
IKEA is another company preparing to let hotel groups know that from next year it is interested in their green credentials, although it will not immediately drop offenders from its directory. ''I cannot say we will be that strict from the first year but it is a tendency for sure,'' said Yves Galimidi, travel manager at IKEA's treasury group InterIKEA.
Following companywide guidelines issued at the beginning of the year, Unilever also has started to interrogate travel suppliers, asking them questions such as whether they have a travel policy and whether they audit the success or otherwise of that policy. Unilever also asks airlines about what steps they are taking to control emissions. Business services manager Ian Hall said environmental criteria are ''certainly a consideration'' when Unilever chooses its suppliers. ''Any organization that actively promotes the environment is of greater interest,'' he said. ''If all things were equal between two suppliers and that was the only differentiating point, then it would make a difference.''
At present, Unilever is not banning travel suppliers that fail to meet green criteria but, said Hall, ''as time progresses, and these issues become more important, that could happen.'' A similar view is shared by Volvo, which asks suppliers for environmental information in its travel tenders. However, assistant travel manager Christer Lindskog feels the car manufacturer cannot start banning travel suppliers from its list because there are no internationally set standards by which to judge them.
Volvo has talked to Green Globe, a U.K.-based spinoff from the World Travel & Tourism Council, but although suppliers can pay Green Globe to carry out environmental audits, there is no independent assessor of green-ness as yet for the industry. Even so, Lindskog believes the very fact that Volvo is asking questions is making suppliers take notice.
''A supplier's environmental performance does not have an influence on our decision, but just by pointing out that we are considering it influences them,'' he said. In any case, Lindskog added, Volvo has an easy hotel choice in Scandinavia thanks to the pioneering work in eco-friendliness for the lodging industry by Scandic Hotels.
Also praised by Skanska's Wickerts, Scandic adopted an overtly green policy in 1993 for its 126 hotels (110 of which are in Nordic countries). Every room in its 20,000-strong inventory is converted when due for refurbishment to recyclable materials, such as wooden floors and surfaces and cotton bed materials. Metal and plastic are avoided as far as possible. Scandic claims that 97 percent of the content in such rooms is recyclable, the main exception being the mercury used in mirrors.
The group also is attempting to reduce its use of energy and water by 30 percent over three years, often using simple conservation measures such as lowering the temperature in bedrooms that have not yet been sold. Other initiatives include getting rid of portion packs in bathrooms and dining rooms and switching to biodegradable detergents.
In all, Scandic has adopted 2,000 different environmentally friendly measures. Marketing and information vice-president Gunnar Brandberg said the group's green strategy was helping it to win customers. Brandberg said, ''Large companies are adopting green policies and so are government departments in Scandinavian countries.