Last week's Association of Corporate Travel Executives conference and other recent developments show the business community is beginning to seriously consider professional travel's contribution to global warming.
Following a similar focus at the spring meeting of Germany's VDR business travel association, ACTE devoted two sessions to the matter. Separately, a handful of travel management companies began offering services related to sustainable or green travel.
According to American Express and Responsible Sourcing Solutions, business travel accounts for between 20 and 60 percent of most corporations' pollutants. Transport represents about one-third of all global climate-changing greenhouse gas emissions, said Responsible Sourcing's Scot Case. While 62 percent of all transportation emissions come from automobiles, a typical jet emits a pound of climate-changing gases per passenger mile.
There is a variety of solutions for reducing or offsetting an organization's business-travel emissions. While travel avoidance interests many environmentalists, multinationals are finding a pragmatic solution in what's known as carbon-offset programs. The idea is that if a corporation tracks its pollutants, it can then take a countermeasure that would not otherwise have occurred--thus offsetting its impact.
Noted American Express Business Travel vice president and general manager Herve Sedky, "This is a topic that cannot be ignored."
In some corners, at least, it is not.
According to Sweden-based CMM Consulting's Catherine Lundberg, ABB's policy emphasizes greener rail travel over air or auto; H&M has a corporate social responsibility (CSR) manager and is scrutinizing its 900 suppliers; and Ikea is considering bringing its locations closer to public transportation centers to cut down on the pollution caused by customer transportation.
The World Bank found that travel contributes between 40 and 60 percent of its carbon footprint. "We are trying to have more videoconferencing, etc.," said Judith Moore, business manager for translation and interpretation in the World Bank's general services department. "For corporations, taking climate risk into account is becoming more and more a part of smart financial management."
The World Bank is focused on buying offsets--essentially, credits representing carbon reduction through forestation or climate-friendly technology projects--as a way of neutralizing its travel impact on the environment. "We expect our operational travel, the travel we can track, to be carbon-neutral this year," said Moore.
Like ACTE, American Express has established a partnership with The CarbonNeutral Company to offer travel professionals a provider of the credit services needed for offset programs. According to Amex's Sedky, "We have been doing this with clients for only less than a year. It still is in its infancy. We are still learning a lot. We are developing a practice line really focused on this but we probably only have about a half-dozen companies that are serious about doing work in this area."
He said Amex developed an "eco-tool" to show a client's travel impact. "We take company-specific travel data, passenger name record data, and crank it through our eco-tool and we are able to find out what the emissions are caused by this specific travel. The diagnostic tool allows us to do what-if scenarios [such as] changing vendors, long-haul versus short-haul, etc."
Portman Travel of the United Kingdom launched the Portman Forest, a program encouraging clients to offset CO2 emissions "by supporting renewable energy, energy efficiency and sustainable forestry projects around the world." Also working with The CarbonNeutral Company, Portman publicized an April YouGov study which found that 62 percent of about 1,300 full-time British workers believed their companies should contribute to the minimization of climate change resulting from business travel. According to The CarbonNeutral Company, British business travelers in 2005 produced nearly 5.4 million tons of greenhouse gases. Commensurate offsets would cost as much as £65 million, the organization said.
Meanwhile, Vancouver-based Uniglobe Travel (Western Canada) Inc. last week launched its Green Flight program, in which travelers can pay to offset their flight's emissions when booking through Uniglobe. Flights deposit CO2 "where it does the worst possible damage, between 30,000 and 40,000 feet above the earth's surface," according to Uniglobe.
These and other initiatives serve to increase awareness of the issue at a time when, according to some observers, the Bush administration's lack of leadership on the matter allows global-warming doubters to stay blind.
"There is still a flat earth society, and I think it has more members than the no-such-thing-as-global-warming crowd," said Responsible Sourcing's Case. "Some people just get stuck in very old thinking."
Absent effective political leadership in this area, Case said business leaders are taking matters into their own hands. He cited Wal-Mart's renewed commitment to environmental efficiency. The retail giant's CEO has said climate change is the biggest threat to his company's growth, and committed Wal-Mart to achieving a handful of lofty goals regarding environmental efficiency.
"Once that company starts pushing it to 60,000 suppliers, it's coming," said Case. Asked what travel professionals can do if their companies are not receptive to the issue, Case said, "I think the approach is: 'I don't know if you believe this stuff or not, but the rest of the world has at least begin tracking this kind of thing, so I think it's to our strategic advantage to, at least, begin tracking. And, maybe there are potential money-making opportunities as a result.' " These could include improved competitiveness in bidding for contracts, energy cost savings or bottom-line impact from carbon-offset projects, he said.
The concern on pollution is one of several in a general movement toward corporate social responsibility. "CSR is about accountability, which is being responsible to our stake-holders, walking the talk [and] getting corporate behavior to fall in line with environmental and social values that we are trying to promote out across the world," said the World Bank's Moore. "It is about transparency. It is about committing to report on the social, environmental and financial performance that impacts the bottom line."
Related resources:
betterworldclub.combsr.orgcarbonfund.orgcarbonneutral.comceres.orgchicagoclimatex.comclimatetrust.orgco2.orggreenhotels.comgreenbiz.comgreenseal.orgmeetingstrategiesworldwide.comnativeenergy.comnatsource.comnrc-recycle.orgplant-trees.orgresponsiblesourcing.netrmi.orgsustainabletravelinternational.orgwbcsd.org