Clinical research organisation Parexel has significantly reduced the environmental impact of its travel activity in Germany by implementing an incentive for travellers to switch from planes to trains.
Modal shift is a useful lever on which many companies pull as they chase emissions reduction targets. Parexel accelerated the switch by allowing travellers to book first class rail travel for trips within Germany, the company’s executive director of travel and sustainability, Ben Park, explained at last week’s GBTA Convention in Atlanta.
“We are promoting first class, high-speed rail over flights for trips of less than four-and-a-half-hours in duration,” said Park. “We didn’t take flights away from the online booking tool, we just told travellers that they’re free to choose first class if they travel by train.
“Travellers still have the choice. We didn’t say they shouldn’t fly anymore and we tested this for a while,” said Park, noting that economy air travel was still permissible.
“We didn’t take the stick approach, we just gave them an easy path to choose the train. One interesting result was that the people who switched to rail said they were much more productive and arrived feeling less stressed.”
Following a pilot of the policy that was launched in Q1 of 2023 – inspired by Deutsche Bahn’s Climate Mobility Challenge – it is now a permanent feature of the company’s travel programme in Germany and has seen rail’s share of domestic trips at Parexel increase from 65 per cent to 96 per cent.
Although first class rail travel is typically more expensive than flights – “which is wrong,” said Park – the productivity gains for travellers able to work onboard mean rail travel delivers a greater return on investment for the company, explained Park. The company is now considering offering a similar incentive to its travellers in France, Spain and Italy.
The concept was hailed a “resounding success” in Parexel’s 2023 Environmental, Social and Governance report published this week, and was achieved in spite of challenges from industrial action across Germany's rail network and the impact of adverse weather. More than two million passenger kilometres were travelled using local and long-distance trains in 2023.
In Germany, the total number of domestic flights taken was 111 in 2023, with six employees accounting for more than half of them. Of those 111 flights, 35 exceeded the 4.5-hour threshold for rail, leaving a net 76 flights that could have been made by train.
“Only four per cent of trips [in Germany] are now flights and if you look at those trips it’s people that are flying on a route that would be a seven-hour train ride,” said Park.
The policy has helped the company reduce emissions from air travel in Germany 30 per cent year-on-year, and contributed to a reduction in global CO2 emissions from air travel in 2023 (10.43m CO2 kg) of 34 per cent from a 2019 baseline, according to the report.
In addition, it noted the company has reduced the average emissions from its company car fleet by 15 per cent, from 123g/km in 2019 to 104g/km in 2023. Since January 2023, all new car orders have been for electric or non-plug-in hybrid vehicles and the company expects its whole fleet – which currently numbers around 800 cars – to be comprised of such vehicles by 2026.
Meanwhile, car rentals in Germany were reduced to 53 last year – down around 30 per cent from 2019 – and electric vehicles are encouraged where possible. In fact, Park noted that employees renting EVs are not required to return them fully charged – one of the key blockers of EV car adoption.
Looking ahead, Parexel’s 2025 year-end goals are to reduce CO2 emissions from air travel by 20 per cent from its 2019 baseline and average fleet emissions by 50 per cent.
The company will report its emissions to the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) for the tenth consecutive year this summer (it was awarded a C grade in 2023) and it has recently submitted science-based emission reduction targets for validation by SBTi as it aims for net zero by no later than 2050. Parexel was awarded an EcoVadis Silver rating in 2023.