FEATURE NAME


THE BIGGER PICTURE


WORDS MAT THEW PARSONS


BUDGET BATTLE OF THE


The WWF’s Gareth Redmond-King


“summit”, taking a different tack. Barclaycard’s Helen Hodgkinson, Diners


S 42


Club’s Lee Jackson and Festive Road’s Paul Tilstone invited travel managers from the World Wide Fund for Nature, Microsoft and Barclays to share case studies and provide concrete examples of what can be done to reduce carbon emissions in a travel programme. Also speaking at the inaugural Climate Action for Corporate Travel Urgent Sustain- ability (CACTUS) summit, which took place at Barclays Bank’s HQ in London’s Canary Wharf, were the Cambridge Institute for


JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020


USTAINABLE TRAVEL is a talking point at nearly all travel conferences, if not the dominant one, but in November a trio of well-known industry faces joined forces to stage their own


At a new sustainability summit, the World Wide Fund for Nature UK urged travel managers to switch to a carbon-based approach to manage their programmes


delegates. “Year on year, we reduce that pot. If you have never set a carbon budget, just start monitoring your performance. We use Key Travel, and they tell us how much carbon is spent each trip, but we also have our own spreadsheet and data collection; you don’t even have to record it yourselves, you can hire people to do that for you. “As soon as you start monitoring, you get a picture of how much carbon your organisa- tion spends.” At the WWF, she said each department submitted a forecast of flights they expected to take for the year ahead. “Throughout the year, people can look at the spreadsheet and see how much they have used, so they need to try and come in under budget, rather than trying to use it all up. The more you can come in under budget, the better. We are responsible to our trustees, and the public who supports us. We also allow some form of trading between departments, but the pot never changes.”


THE PRIORITY IS


TO REDUCE CARBON IN THE FIRST PLACE, BECAUSE THAT DAMAGE IS


ALREADY DONE


Sustainability Leadership, SkyNRG and Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP). Gareth Redmond-King, head of climate change at the World Wide Fund For Nature UK (WWF), set the scene on the day by saying the term “climate change” was no longer relevant. “It’s beyond change now,” he said. “Change isn’t a big enough word anymore. We’re into a climate crisis; a climate emer- gency. We’re at the stage now where we’re the last generation probably who can act in time to avert a climate breakdown.” His colleague Lauren Wiseman, the


WWF’s environmental manager, then discussed how setting a carbon, rather than financial, budget was an effective way to minimise emissions. “We have one pot of carbon that we divide up between departments,” she told


Wiseman was also keen to insist that while at the end of the year WWF offset those emissions, it remained a last resort. “It’s not a get-out-of-jail-free card,” she warned. “It is a way to make amends for the carbon you have expended. The first priority is to reduce in the first place, because that damage is already done.” Speaking after the event, Diners Club’s


Jackson told BBT: “The event attracted a large number of people and demonstrated a latent desire among those attending to understand how they can do more to address the climate and ecological crisis.” Hodgkinson added: “The objective is simple and clear. It is to deliver meaningful, science-based dialogue within the global business travel community to stimulate real, tangible action to reduce the impact of business travel on global warming.” The next CACTUS event will take place on


28 February in central London and will be hosted by LinkedIn and Microsoft.  Buyer’s Guide: Building a greener policy, p50


buyingbusinesstravel.com


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