#008 Have A Sustainable Travel Policy
With almost the entire world grounded, now’s a good time to reset expectations on how you get around.
Travel and work has a complicated relationship.
For some, it may be a perk of the job. For others, a fundamental (but boring) part of the role.
Travel and business on the other hand, has a very clear relationship.
Corporate travel contributes up to 75% of some airline’s profit, despite only making up about 12% of passengers. While, supposedly, an estimated 28% of current business would be lost if business travel were suddenly cut off.
Getting around — whether that’s to visit another office, visit a client or customer, attend conferences and training, or spark new partnerships — is such a fundamental part of business that many of us, before the current pandemic, could’ve imagined going without.
As we’ll all know now, many things can be accomplished virtually.
And, so if you don’t have a sustainable travel policy, now could be a good time to create one and reset the way your organisation does things.
So, what’s the big idea?
Corporate travel is usually the biggest contributor to carbon emissions for service based businesses: PwC estimates business travel is the single biggest contributor to its carbon emissions, at 53 per cent.
And it’s not just in the fuel burned getting from A to B — everything from accommodation to food and beverages also comes at a cost in carbon.
Think about the electricity that goes into maintaining lighting and air conditioning throughout hotels, the water used in laundering sheets and towels and the waste produced by single-use convenience items, for example.
The good news is, accommodation providers are amongst those in the travel and hospitality industry who are increasingly becoming aware of their impact, and taking active steps to be more efficient.
Outlining the responsibility of your team to not only consider how they get around, but who they choose to support with travel budgets is basically what a sustainable travel policy is all about.
Here’s how you can get started in making yours.
Getting Started
First, come up with some commitments that are in line with your companies values, mission and (ideally) environmental goals.
Some things you will need to consider are:
- Is your travel policy for local travel (say, getting across town for a meeting), or further afield? One for both is also great.
- What justifies travel in your organisation? For example, is meeting a customer a worthy use of time, energy and carbon? Are there norms or rules you can set around defaulting to virtual meetings?
- What constraints do you have around travel? Does your travel budget allow for more environmentally-friendly choices, or offsetting of emissions? Does your team get to choose providers, or is it managed by a third party?
- What strategies can you use to lower the impact of your travel? This could include codifying things like making offsets mandatory; choosing providers with eco-friendly ratings, certifications, endorsements or publicised commitments; standardising that the smallest group of people are the ones to travel if two groups need to meet; the list is exhaustive and I’ll be adding more as I find them here.
- What are the reporting requirements and who do they sit with? Is it everyone’s responsibility to track and understand the carbon cost of their choices? Is it someone’s job already to keep your organisation on track with any carbon goals you’ve agreed to?
Secondly, put it into a format that makes sense for you, share it with those it’s going to affect, talk about it, gather feedback and start the journey to normalising your new stance.
If you need a template to start from, here’s one we’ve made to get you started.
Like all good things, measuring the impact of your new choices and helping your team to understand the difference it’s making can be a big part of making any new policy stick.
Getting your leaders to model expected behaviour is also incredibly powerful too.
Conversation Starters
If you need some ways to open the conversation with peers, seniors or even your own internal dialogue, here are some things you could ask:
- What are our biggest reasons for travelling at the moment?
- How many of those have we now learned to do via virtual platforms?
- Where is our threshold for justifying face to face meetings? What types of meeting are best done in person for ethical, or practical reasons?
- What systems and guidance are already in place to help staff choose travel providers and book with them?
- Are there any other goals, policies or reporting guidelines that might touch on this? For example, a supplier policy, or environmental care policy.
Going Further
Have a policy that’s working well for your organisation? I’d love to hear what strategies you’re using and seeing value from. Please get in touch via the comments or via email here to share your learnings — bonus points if you have an open source policy we can share.
Already have your sustainably travel policy covered? Another often overlooked area is food, drink and hardware — perhaps you could tackle that next!
