When the dust settles, coronavirus will have forced many people to cancel business trips in recent weeks – and it may prompt some to have a bigger rethink about their business travel, how necessary it is, and whether they could do it better.
Air travel is a significant contributor towards global warming; just one return flight to New York uses up an individual’s personal allowance of carbon emissions for an entire year, according to the Environmental Transport Association. So how could you keep connected with the world while taking better care of the planet?
Understand your impact
The old adage holds true: to fix anything you need to measure it first. If you work with a travel management company, they should be able to provide you with comprehensive CO2 emission data for all your air and rail travel, as well as hotel stays. That provides you with a baseline from which to target reductions.
It also helps you to see where business travel sits within your overall environmental impact as a company. At PwC, for example, business travel is the biggest part of the firm’s overall environmental impact, representing some 90% of its overall carbon footprint, with air travel alone notching up 79% of that figure.
Is it necessary?
“The most effective way of reducing our travel-related carbon emissions is to avoid travelling wherever possible,” says professional services firm CapGemini.
And Howie Frumkin, head of the Our Planet, Our Health programme at health research group Wellcome, says in a blog: “Here’s how I approach travel – I interrogate every trip. First, do I really need that meeting? We’re all too busy, and we all have too many meetings, many of them not really necessary. If the meeting doesn’t need to happen, let’s cancel it!
"Second, if the meeting has to happen, is my presence really needed? If I’m one of many people around a big table, if my presence won’t change the outcome, if I don’t have much to contribute, I’ll send my regrets.”
Use technology
Videoconferencing is now high quality and commonplace – especially among millennials. And collaborative tools mean you can share documents and other materials without being in the same room. A survey of 1,300 professionals by US supplier Lifesize last year found that 47% said they had reduced their business travel because of videoconferencing. Other studies have suggested that it could replace 20% of business travel.
Take the train
Other forms of transport are generally, but not always, more environmentally friendly than flying. According to research by ecopassenger.org, an individual flying from London to Paris would generate 122kg of carbon dioxide, whereas the same journey by train would emit just 15kg.
Using the train may not be an option for someone based in the Channel Islands, of course, but you can still reduce your impact by flying economy. For long-haul flights, carbon emissions per passenger per kilometre travelled are about three times higher for business class and four times higher for first class, according to the UK’s Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS).
Offset
Many companies automatically invest in offsets for all their flights – and sometimes other forms of business travel – and a travel management company can usually arrange that. PwC says: “With support from our major supplier, Natural Capital Partners, our member firms select portfolios to reflect local priorities.
Underpinning our approach is a set of strict quality criteria, including ensuring our offsets are verified by an independent third party to an established standard or protocol.”
Plan carefully
Simply planning ahead can make a big difference to your overall impact on the planet. Try and tack trips together, rather than making multiple journeys; fly direct rather than making transfers – taking off and landing have a disproportionate impact; and think about even combining your business trip with your family holiday.