companies realise that the two go hand-in-hand.” Many corporate buyers have imposed a carbon-cutting agenda, but the nature of some businesses means that individuals don’t necessarily buy into it. Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PwC), for example, pushes people towards rail travel on trips of up to three hours. PwC’s business travel manager, Will
Hasler, says: “We continue to take our carbon agenda very seriously, as we have to offset any carbon we cannot mitigate. For Paris and Brussels, more than three quarters of trips are by train, and Manchester is similar. We just make people aware they have a choice and explain the options. It’s all about the end-to-end journey. “Hotel carbon emissions are still
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a challenge although we are always looking at a viable solution to measure them effectively, and since 2009 our hotel bookings have not increased at the same rate as transport. But as the latest financial crisis descends upon us, all travel and accommodation needs to be challenged again.” The Medical and Dental Defence Union of Scotland (MDDUS), a legal defence organisation, has seen a switch to rail even on London- Glasgow/Edinburgh routes where the typical journey time is four hours. But facilities and central purchasing officer Peter Macey accepts that the recession has had an effect.
“I have always attempted to raise
awareness of green issues but this has often fallen flat, due to costs, convenience or, more often than not, the exigencies of the company’s business,” he explains. “The switch to rail was primarily to do with carbon reduction, and since I rewrote the travel policy a year ago I included a piece specifically to consider this when
Many buyers have imposed a carbon-cutting agenda, but the nature of some businesses means that individuals don’t necessarily buy into it
travelling. When I am negotiating deals with hotels, airlines and the like, carbon reduction is an issue that I do raise, if only to get a feel of how important the service provider sees this as.”
SUPPLYING DATA Travel management companies have seen no reduction in the carbon data their customers ask them to provide. CWT senior director Sandy Moring says: “Our MI [management information] can pull together data on areas where businesses can make changes, like switching from air to rail. Some airlines use newer, more fuel-efficient aircraft and that may motivate them, but not if it incurs extra expense. We are not yet at the stage where the green agenda is
leading, and that may never happen. But legislation will increasingly encourage best practice, and we have got our own house in order by gaining ISO 14001 environmental accreditation. That helps because accredited companies want to do business with each other.” Trevor Elswood, managing director of Capita Business Travel (CBT) and accommodation and meetings booking agency BSI, predicts there will be “no knee-jerk reaction” to abandon the green agenda, even if 2012 brings bleaker economic times. “Every customer of both CBT and BSI has carbon reporting as the third or fourth item on their agenda as part of the tendering process,” he says. “Teleconferencing has certainly grown, and is coming down in price. Our own organisation has seen the cost of it halved over the last 18 months. “The hotel industry has not
yet come up with reliable carbon reporting, but BSI has combined various data and produced its own. We have some major customers who are very comfortable with our methodology. “An individual does not choose to
stay in one hotel rather than another because of lower carbon emissions. But when organisations create their hotel programmes, they put more weight on chains reducing their CO2, or ones which started out with a very credible CO2 level.” n