Travel management start-up COCO+ has achieved B Corp certification, a milestone for the sustainability-focused company that incorporates the cost of offsetting business travel in its transaction fees.
The UK-based company is among just a handful of travel management companies with the certification, which evaluates products and services and assesses a company's overall social and environmental impact. These include Atlas Travel and Technology Group, which has operations in the US and UK, Bizaway in Italy, and Australia-based Reho Travel.
COCO+ CEO and co-founder Neil Fincham-Dukes said from the company's very beginning, achieving B Corp status has been a “key ambition”.
“Striving to build a truly ethical and sustainable business right from its very foundations has been core to our progress,” he said.
While companies require a score of 80 to achieve B Corp status, the TMC said its score of 115.7 demonstrates its “deep-rooted commitments” to responsible business practices.
The TMC is focused on educating customers on their Scope 3 carbon emissions and via its ‘offset+ model’ pays to offset more than the calculated emissions in order to “make a real environmental difference”.
In April the the company began onboarding customers to its full-service booking platform, where emissions associated with business travel are offset through gold-standard ClimateCare projects worldwide.
On top of this, Fincham-Dukes said the company is also looking to establish a foundation to operate sustainability projects in the UK.
“We couldn’t be prouder of the team we have built and the business we launched,” he added. “There is so much more to come”.