A MATTER OF URGENCY

SETTING TARGETS

More than 60 per cent of respondents to BTN Europe’s survey – conducted in August and September – said their companies have set overall carbon reduction targets, with that figure rising to 70 per cent among European travel managers. Those targets come in different shapes and forms – many will have been publicly declared and some approved by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi).

By June this year, SBTi said more than 5,500 companies around the world have had targets validated.

REDUCTION RATIONALE

Among the reasons cited for setting business travel emission reduction goals, three options stood out from the rest: to comply with government regulation, because senior management has stressed its importance, and because respondents’ employers are specifically pursuing a strategy of reducing business travel emissions.

Looking at the regional results, it’s little surprise that complying with government regulation was selected by nearly two-thirds (65 per cent) of European respondents – compared with 41 per cent in the US – with CSRD reporting required of many EU-based companies from 2025.

Lower down the pecking order, only 29 per cent of travel managers said that customers were exerting pressure on them to reduce business travel emissions, and 23 per cent said their emissions reduction targets were also implemented to help attract and retain employees.

According to Deloitte, such companies are positioning themselves well in the fight for talent. The consulting giant’s 2024 Gen Z and Millennial Survey showed 72 per cent of Gen Zs and 71 per cent of Millennials look at environmental credentials and policies when considering a potential employer.

MAKING PROGRESS

Collating and reporting on emissions from business travel activity is the logical place to begin building an emissions reduction strategy, as highlighted by the 59 per cent of travel managers who have been tasked with doing just that.

And it’s the right first step, according to Salesforce EMEA and Latam senior manager of travel and sustainability Jenny Sabineu. But, she says, getting a solid data set from multiple sources and digging into the finer features of the data is what ultimately makes meaningful action possible, and it’s not easy.

“Our real data before structuring a programme was all over the place,” she says, citing booking tools, expense tools, credit cards and suppliers all as emissions data sources that had to be normalised for Salesforce’s proprietary carbon calculations.

Once you have the data, then you have to interrogate it. “You need to run your data. What is it telling you? Where are those opportunities for your company?” she asks. “Just because [a benchmarking partner] is doing something successfully in Chicago does not mean that Salesforce is going to have those same opportunities.”

There was notable regional disparity on the next two actions in the survey, with traveller booking behaviour modifications undertaken by 52 per cent of European respondents but only 37 per cent of North American travel managers.

A considerably larger gulf was identified when it comes to travel managers turning to modal shift as a means of reducing emissions. Nearly two-thirds of European travel managers have or are working on strategies to move business travellers from planes to trains compared to 26 per cent in North America where the infrastructure to do so is limited.

UK-based engineering and management consultancy Mott MacDonald is one such company turning to rail. It has identified carbon-efficient rail options across nearly 20 domestic routes. The policy change requires travellers to book rail on these routes, unless they have specific approval to book air.

Since the modal shift campaign was introduced last July, group travel manger Flo Chick says carbon emissions on the identified routes have dropped by 50 per cent.

Chick said OBT preferencing capabilities will be critical in driving further behaviour change among travellers, such as the ability to sort search results according to carbon emissions rather than by cost.

“Once you've got the tools to do that, you don't have to necessarily write the policy so much as apply the logic in the rules,” she explains.

ADVANCED APPROVALS

Although many companies in BTN Europe’s survey have set emissions reduction goals and implemented a number of strategies to deliver on them, few have tightened up approvals processes as a means of doing so.

Overall, just over a quarter of travel managers said approvals thresholds have been altered as part of their sustainability efforts. However, more than four in ten have done so in Europe compared to two in ten in North America. Another sign, perhaps, that Europe is further along its sustainability journey.

PARTNERING FOR PROGRESS

Travel management companies and booking tool providers are by far and away travel managers’ first stop for helping to deliver on sustainable travel expectations, with 69 per cent of respondents turning to such partners.

Suppliers, third-party consulting companies and specialist carbon calculator tech providers were the next most-used resources, while participation in airlines’ alternative fuel schemes and carbon offsetting projects were less popular.

CARBON QUESTIONS

When it comes to sustainability questions in RFPs, there was little consensus among survey respondents. A quarter of travel managers say they ask for some detail on suppliers’ internal emissions reduction efforts, 16 per cent look for more granular detail, and 13 per cent ask for only basic, check-box type information.

How travel managers and their companies apply that information also varies. Overall, 31 per cent said that if all else is equal, supplier alignment on sustainability influences their supplier selection, while 23 per cent said that, in general, pricing would outweigh suppliers’ sustainability efforts.

In Europe, 21 per cent of travel managers said suppliers’ sustainability efforts significantly factor into partner selection, but only 8 per cent of North American respondents said the same.