Through collaboration with colleagues and his company's
travel agency, booking tool provider and other travel suppliers, Marsh &
McLennan Cos. regional travel manager for the Americas Greg Wilczek developed a
green travel program designed to cover every aspect of a business trip—starting
before travelers even leave their homes.
Wilczek said that he aggressively began addressing sustainability
about three years ago as part of a companywide effort. He assembled a small
committee that included the company's chief sustainability officer, a green
expert from one of MMC's operating companies and representatives from
designated agency BCD Travel and preferred booking tool GetThere.
Wilczek said lodging offers the most tangible opportunity
for green travel procurement. MMC created an environmental performance
evaluation for hotels tied to the company's annual request for proposals.
Completing the evaluation is a required RFP step. Hoteliers must describe the
eco-friendly guest behaviors they promote, any incentives for those
behaviors—food and beverage coupons in exchange for declining maid service, for
example, or preferred parking for hybrid cars—and how such measures are
communicated to guests.
"There are much more innovative ways for hotels to be
green beyond just recycling food and putting a tent card in the room,"
Wilczek said. "For each [attribute], there's a different rank and score, which
hotel providers are not privy to."
Each year, MMC scores 400 to 500 individual properties.
Roughly the top 20 percent earn a green hotel designation. When listing those
properties, GetThere includes icons and graphics so MMC travelers can consider
that criteria alongside rate, location and brand.
When all other factors are equal, Wilczek said he is hopeful
the green designation drives more MMC travelers to eco-friendly hotels, though
measuring that has proven difficult.
"Procurement is all about data, measurement and
quantification, but with green, it's nearly impossible to measure and quantify,"
he said. "You could look for shifts and see whether green hotels were
patronized more, but there are so many other dynamics—rates negotiated and
shifts in our travel patterns—that it would be disingenuous if we saw more
usage at a green hotel to say it was solely because of our green traveler
program."
Meanwhile, some car rental suppliers agreed to offer MMC
preferential pricing for hybrid vehicles and cars with fuel efficiency of at
least 27 miles per gallon that are certified as SmartWay vehicles by the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency.
Green initiatives through travel agencies may be less
tangible, but Wilczek said reporting from BCD Travel played a crucial role in
the company's carbon disclosure initiative, through which third parties monitor
MMC's air spending and travel patterns to determine its carbon footprint. BCD
also has pushed mobile itineraries and included wording on invoices to
discourage travelers from printing them.
"If you printed every invoice for our U.S. traveler
population, that stack of paper would reach about eight stories high,"
Wilczek said.
MMC also has worked to influence traveler behavior through
every stage of a trip. Tips include bringing a recyclable water bottle rather
than buying bottled water and, before leaving home, adjusting the thermostat to
save energy and unplugging appliances to avoid wasting "vampire voltage"
while traveling. MMC hired a production company to create a humorous video
illustrating these points and promoted it through a collaboration tab in the
GetThere tool.
GetThere also provides carbon emissions information on
booked air travel, though there is little that can be done to drive behavior on
that side, Wilczek said. "I doubt the average traveler will choose a
flight solely based on carbon emissions," he said.
But travel program managers still can try. GetThere displays
to MMC travelers dynamic messaging that suggests alternatives to travel. A
traveler searching for flights on one of the company's more frequented routes,
for example, will get a message noting how many annual miles the company flies
between those destinations, while suggesting videoconferencing as an option,
with a link back to the video and other tips on traveling greener.
GetThere at its North American Summit in March honored MMC's
efforts, giving the company the "tree-hugger" Visionary Award.
This report
originally appeared in the May 2013 issue of Travel Procurement.