Profiles In Travel Management: Midmarket Law Firm Sets Green Travel Agenda

Company: Reed Smith
Headquarters: Pittsburgh
Annual Travel Volume: $5 million

When Reed Smith's clients inquired about the Pittsburgh-based company's green practices early last year, the international corporate law firm answered the summons by implementing companywide green initiatives, including a carbon calculating and offset system.

Within a few months, the company had created an internal green management committee, partnered with its travel management companies to count its 2007 carbon emissions and allocate carbon offset donations and began sourcing efforts to provide a list of green suppliers to the company's 2,500 employees. The firm also plans to pilot its preferred car rental vendor's carbon-offset program.

Firmwide travel manager Rosanne Russo was charged with bringing the midmarket travel program on board with the company's green efforts. Russo joined the firm in December 2006 and in six months had developed a global travel program to manage the company's annual $5 million total travel expenditure. "Since the firm was going green, I knew I needed to step up to the plate," said Russo.

Enlisting assistance from Reed Smith's GlobalStar Travel Management network agencies, U.K.-based Advanced Travel Partner and New York-based Ultramar Travel Management, the law firm retroactively counted its carbon emissions to January 2007 and made a carbon offset donation of $22,000 to account for 13.7 million flown miles.

"The goal wasn't so much to eliminate the miles we travel, but to make the donation to make up for using those miles," Russo said.

Russo delivers monthly carbon emissions reports to the company's "green committee," comprised of senior management, managing partners from several offices and the chief of office services. The monthly reports include carbon counts for Reed Smith operations in France, Germany and some other international locations. The reports are divided into three travel categories: meetings, pro bono and transient.

"Because it is a global issue, it makes the global travel program that much more important," Russo said. "This is not just a domestic issue. It really ties in with creating a global travel program and it's just one more initiative to add to your list."

In an effort to get travelers to buy into Reed Smith's green initiatives, messages are posted on the company's intranet and travelers' itineraries include carbon emission information for specific trips.

"They are putting the effort in by business traveling," Russo said. "When you can show them the carbon offset they have, it gives them the opportunity to give back and it ties them into the program a little better."

For Russo, accurate reporting enables her to concentrate on other tenets of travel while meeting green requirements. "Once you put the calculation in place and it's set up, there is not a whole lot to it. I still have to concentrate on making sure our travelers are safe and that we are saving dollars everywhere we can, but this is another step that has become part of my responsibilities," she said.

Russo plans to compile a preferred hotel directory with at least one green property near each corporate office. Russo also will add green portions to travel-related requests for proposals. Reed Smith also may test Enterprise Rent-A-Car's corporate carbon-offset program, which Enterprise is testing in the leisure market.

"Reed Smith recognized that the customers are interested in this, and obviously when it's important to your clients, it has to be important to you," Russo said. "This is where corporate social responsibility comes into play."