Navigating the Trillion-Dollar Skies: Managing Business Travel in the New Era of Sustainability
Navigating the Trillion-Dollar Skies: Managing Business Travel in the New Era of Sustainability
by Adam Braun, Co-Founder and CEO of Climate Club
Corporate travel is a trillion-dollar industry.
And while all the indicators in our post-COVID world initially pointed to a slow return to pre-pandemic corporate travel, newly released forecasts from the Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) reveal the opposite is now true. Business travel has bounced back faster than expected, and spending is anticipated to surpass the pre-pandemic spending level of $1.4 trillion next year to grow to an estimated $1.8 trillion by 2027.
Business travel spend is enormously impactful to climate change because:
Corporate travel generates roughly 40% of aviation industry revenues.
Air travel may represent up to 27% of GHG emissions by 2050.
4 in 10 UK companies (and one-third of U.S. companies) need to reduce travel per employee by more than 20% to meet their 2030 sustainability targets.
Given this reality, if business travel spending will soon reach unprecedented levels, how do companies prioritize sustainability and stay on track to achieve their net zero goals while navigating the challenges presented by the role travel plays in a business’ bottom-line success?
Business Travel Today
Business travel has always been a vital part of corporate business. Whether for new market launches, fostering client or partner relationships, exploring new business opportunities, attending events, or conducting research and development, corporate travel is driven by various business objectives and operational needs across industries, organizations, and departments.
In our post-COVID world, corporate travel has also taken on a new definition that includes navigating the remote and hybrid work environments that have blurred the lines between business travel and commuting. It's not uncommon to see corporate travel teams tasked with developing commuter programs and partnering with HR, transportation, and real estate teams to shape employee mobility strategies. With this shift in the corporate travel ecosystem, reducing emissions from corporate air travel (which makes up 90% of business travel emissions) without reducing external and internal business objectives can feel like walking a tightrope.
While we see Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) as a critical part of the long-term solution to decarbonization, most recognize that the limited supply, high costs and lack of immediately available infrastructure to support SAF means we’ll likely need to be patient for SAF to scale to support the market holistically.
So, how will companies deliver key business outcomes while hitting their emissions goals, especially those committed to science-based targets?
How Leading Companies Solve the Emissions Challenge
In acknowledging that business travel spending will soon reach unprecedented levels, we can also assume that corporate travel will continue to be part of business ahead. However, there is a huge opportunity to be more thoughtful and strategic in how you travel.
Since co-founding Climate Club in 2021, I've had the opportunity to work with some of the world's leading enterprises on their decarbonization efforts, and it has given our team a unique view into what best-in-class businesses are doing to balance sustainability initiatives with business outcomes.
Reducing emissions from business travel requires doing these three things well:
Define what good travel looks like. Travel policies alone cannot solve the emissions problem. Organizations and leaders need a way to understand their business travel’s true impact and value. Research from tClara found that low-value trips can be predicted in advance with roughly 75% accuracy. However, determining a “good” or “necessary” business trip depends on the team, department, and business function. It’s not one size fits all.
One way to discern good travel from unnecessary travel is through short pre- and post-trip assessment surveys. Asking employees pre-trip questions like “What’s the specific goal of this trip?” and “What’s the expected ROI of this trip?” followed by post-trip questions such as, “Did you meet your business objectives?” and “How valuable was this trip?” can provide contextual data to develop trip health scores that enable you to predict future outcomes, drive better travel decisions and enable team-specific, custom targets rather than one-size-fits-all policies.
Surface progress to targets for team leaders. Driving down business travel emissions requires the centralization of disparate travel data to better measure, plan and predict the environmental impact of travel to support real-time decision making. Leveraging data analytics to identify travel patterns and opportunities for optimization helps you make informed decisions about travel routes, timing, and modes of transportation.
The ability to go down to the team and individual level to identify which travel choices are leading to the most significant drivers of emissions enables leaders to manage their carbon budgets better while empowering their people to make the right decisions on behalf of the business.
Model in-year scenarios to drive decisions. Companies should aspire to manage their carbon emissions similarly to how they manage financials - with a depth of understanding that far exceeds the standard once-a-year retrospective report, and in collaboration with carbon accounting, works to provide data on the immediate potential impact of real-time decisions.
Business travel-specific data, analytics, planning and reporting tools enable organizations to focus sustainability efforts in areas with the greatest impact. By leveraging predictive modeling to forecast future travel emissions based on historical data and projected travel plans, companies can significantly enhance the expected success of team, department, and individual targets. Scenario modeling further surfaces the financial impact and potential emissions savings of different transportation options, and customizable “what if” scenarios provide visibility into emissions and budget impacts of in-year decisions and actions.
Harnessing the power of consolidated, contextualized data to perform continuous rather than annual analysis and reporting enables companies to measure progress, identify opportunities for improvement, and ultimately take a more business-centric approach to achieving net-zero emissions goals.
At Climate Club, we provide companies with a comprehensive software platform that enables companies to rapidly and successfully deploy all three of the critical capabilities outlined above. Within any business where travel is a significant driver of costs, emissions or culture, it is critical that you have the tools to forge a partnership between your travel, sustainability and core business teams.
By defining and quantifying what good travel looks like, surfacing progress to targets for team leaders and modeling in-year scenarios to drive decisions, companies can strategically plan and manage travel so that every employee can focus on delivering business outcomes while achieving sustainability goals.
The Path Forward to Net Zero Success
A 2022 report by Accenture revealed 93% of companies will miss their emissions targets unless they accelerate progress on reduction. Whether motivated by public commitments, brand reputation or cost reductions, moving the needle requires a new breed of sustainability intelligence that is truly actionable.
It is clear that the pathway to net zero now requires every company to activate its most valuable asset - its people. To truly reduce emissions and reach net zero targets, companies must close the gap between climate-related intentions and actions across all levels of the organization.
By removing data silos, setting clear emission reduction targets specific to teams, and consistently tracking the business value and sustainability impact created from each trip, companies can better understand the true implications of business travel to build real-time intelligence that will allow them to thrive in achieving goals for their customers, partners, people and planet.
🍿 The Lean Back
Learn about the differences between resilience and sustainability from Janelle Kellman, Founder and CEO of the Center for Sea Rise Solutions.
🎙️ My Climate Journey Podcast
🌊 Cody talked to Janelle Kellman, the former mayor of Sausalito, an active member of the Sausalito City Council, and the founder and CEO of the Center for Sea Rise Solutions. We covered Janelle’s current initiatives, an overview of coastal resilience, and how she collaborates with cities around the world to prepare for the inevitability of rising sea levels. Listen to the episode here.
🌱 The director of investments at The Nature Conservancy, Ian Smith, joined Jason for a fascinating conversation about how TNC is investing its endowment, and how the environmental org balances impact and profit. Tune in to the Capital Series here.
🦠 The CEO and founder of Andes, Fuenzalida-Meriz, shared his company’s microbial approach to carbon removal. Andes also harnesses a different microorganism they genetically modify to increase corn's ability to affix nitrogen into the soil and reduce the need for synthetic fertilizers. There’s a lot to unpack in this one. Listen to the Startup Series here.
👩💻 Climate Jobs
For more open positions, check out the #j-climatejobs channel in MCJ Slack as well as our MCJ Job Board.
Field Engineer at AMP Robotics (Louisville, CO)
Staff Firmware Engineer at Artyc (Fremont, CA)
Senior Data Engineer at Heirloom (Brisbane, CA)
Government & Public Affairs Manager at Lilac Solutions (Salta, Argentina)
Lifecycle Marketing at Mill (San Bruno, CA)
VP of Engineering at Pachama (Remote)
Executive Assistant at Pheonix Tailings (Burlington, MA)
Content Marketing Lead at Quilt (Redwood City, CA)
Growth Product Manager at Terra.do (Remote)
Accounting Manager at Zanskar (Salt Lake City, UT)
✨ Community Highlights
🚨 Reminder to all MCJ members to complete our 2023 Annual Survey: We greatly value your opinion, and you can make an outsized impact on the future of the community in less than a few minutes. Haven’t yet seen it? Search your inbox for ‘Help improve the MCJ Community! Complete our 4 minute community check-in’. Thank you for your time!
🗓 Climate Events
💸 MCJ AMA with Hampus Jakobsson: Hampus is a software engineer, turned founder, turned angel investor, turned VC. He’s also the General Partner and Co-founder at Pale Blue Dot. Listen to our Capital Series with Hampus and get your questions ready! Details here. (Sept 20)
👩💻 MCJ + Climate People Career Advancement Meetup: A unique opportunity to learn from experts, build a strong community, and chart your path in the climate sector. (Sept 13)
🇬🇧 MCJ London September Social with Sustainable Ventures and Cleantech for UK: Converse and connect with entrepreneurs, operators, investors, academics, policymakers and more who are all passionate about climate solutions. (Sept 13)
👋 MCJ Community Welcome Call: Connect, share and learn with the MCJ team and community. (Sept 14)
🌱 MCJ Monthly Idea Jams, Nature-Based Solutions & Biodiversity: Two presenters pitch their idea to the group, and attending community members provide feedback everything from presentation style to thoughts on the idea/market. (Sept 15)
🇫🇷 MCJ Paris Climate Tech Meetup: Quarterly gathering for founders and investors active in the space. Come join us! (Sept 20)
👩💻 Women in Data x Climate Workgroup | Batteries & Physics-Informed Models: This meeting will include a brief Batteries 101 and intro to physics-based ML applications presented by Sofia Taylor. No prior background knowledge in these fields are necessary to attend and get the most out of this meeting! (Sept 20)
🍻 MCJ Minneapolis / St. Paul Climate Meetup: Monthly gathering for the local climate community. (Sept 21)
😎 MCJ LA Climate Tech Meetup: Special thanks to our sponsor JP Morgan who will be helping us provide drinks and small appetizers. (Sept 26)
The MCJ Collective Newsletter is a free weekly email curating news, jobs, My Climate Journey podcast episodes, and other noteworthy happenings in the MCJ member community.
💭 If you have feedback or items you’d like to include, feel free to reach out.
🤝 If you’d like to become an MCJ community member, apply today.
💡 Have a climate-related event or content topic that you'd like to see in the MCJ newsletter? Email us at content@mcjcollective.com