Profiles In Travel Management: Co. Uses Travel Emissions Tool As Green Blueprint

Company: Autodesk
Headquarters: San Rafael, Calif.
2008 global air volume: $30-35 million

Design and engineering software company Autodesk in the past 18 months has implemented a comprehensive sustainability strategy for its business operations, already surpassing its initial goal of reducing travel-related greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent in three years.

Even before the company set forth its green strategy, its global travel team, led by director of global travel and workplace sustainability programs Bruce Finch, partnered with Salem, N.H.-based sustainability management software provider Greenboard Technology to build a customized emissions reporting and tracking tool, using data feeds from its travel management companies. The technology now is used for the measurement of emissions in other Autodesk operations, including facilities, energy usage and waste management.

According to the company's first sustainability report, released in September 2008, employee business travel in 2007 accounted for 36,000 metric tons, 56 percent of the company's carbon emissions from core business operations. Employees flew 175 million miles on commercial airlines in 2007, making air travel Autodesk's largest single emissions source at 33,000 metric tons. On average, an Autodesk business traveler emits 5.8 metric tons of greenhouse gases annually. Business air travel in the Americas accounted for 62 percent of overall air travel emissions in 2007.

Those numbers will plummet this year, as Autodesk's $30 million to $35 million global air volume in 2008 is down by 50 percent.

In conjunction with Earth Day, the company is taking reporting one step further and rolling out personal employee greenhouse gas emission dashboards, which calculate emissions based on work commutes, business travel and facility locations. "It's not so much that they are accountable, but that they have a view of what their contribution to this is," said Finch.

"By educating our employees about what the company goals are, as well as how they contribute to the overall carbon footprint of the company, we can get our employees to understand that if we are reducing by 20 percent they can actually see it themselves."

Now, with baseline measurements in hand, Finch is implementing more detailed reporting based on aircraft engine, fleet age and class of service to further weigh suppliers' green credentials during sourcing. Autodesk currently requires airlines to provide quarterly reports that detail their CO2 emissions and green strategies.

Hertz Corp. also provides data feeds with information on emissions generated during car rental periods into the reporting platform. Finch plans to add hotel reporting and ultimately pull in data from expense reports to fully factor in ground transportation emissions.

In the third quarter of this year, Autodesk will roll out more detailed business division reporting. "We generate about 700 reports from the travel agency and one report is missing—the CO2 report for each division," according to Finch. "We are working right now to provide a cost center hierarchy so we are able to break it down based on the cost centers for each division. That's going to give the leadership team the ability to see what they are doing and to measure over time whether or not they are reducing."

Carbon calculation and reporting is only one step in cutting Autodesk's emissions. For example, the software company now has nine videoconferencing centers and plans to install another five in the next eight months, according to Finch. Autodesk projects that its two-year videoconferencing return on investment will be in the millions of dollars.