Sustainability and Making Your Business Travel Count 

Tech Support 

If you’re looking into ways that your business can make travel more sustainable, we’re happy to help. Your travel consultant can give you ideas of where to optimise your travel and how to track your mileage using our technology. They can show you how to use tools and tech for things like:  

• Carbon reporting to provide full visibility on your travel emissions 
• Carbon analysis to look at how to reduce your impact, with support to integrate this into your travel policy 
• Carbon offsetting to offset the environmental impact of your travel 

Small Steps for Greater Impact 

Talking about sustainability means also talking about measuring impact on travellers and bottom lines. Every action has a reaction. In conversations about sustainability, our customer success managers can showcase how some sustainability goals impact traveller wellness and how the cost relates to your company.  

For example, reducing the number of connections on a flight are big wins to being sustainable in travel, and travellers always appreciate that, but they come with a higher cost to your business. Or, you might decide to choose a red-eye flight to save time on the overall trip and cost of the flight, but the time may not be ideal for your team member’s wellbeing. We have a grid that you can use to see how sustainability might impact your people. 

How airlines are helping 

Though airline travel is far from sustainable, some airlines are committed to changing the narrative. For example, Qantas wants Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAF) to make up 10% of its overall fuel mix by 2030, and 60% by 2050. CO2 emissions are reduced by up to 75% when SAFs replace kerosene, but many airlines don’t use SAF because of cost, little production and limited availability. However, in January 2022 Qantas became the first Australian airline to purchase SAF on an ongoing basis, with 15% of its annual fuel purchased out of London Heathrow Airport to be SAF – reducing carbon emissions by around 10% on the London-Australia route. While in June 2022, Qantas and Airbus signed a partnership to invest up to AUD$288 million to accelerate the development of SAF in Australia.

Air New Zealand has also laid out a clear plan to achieve its goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, with the focus on four main ways to reduce gross emissions – including zero emissions aircraft, SAF, operational efficiency and fleet renewal. In 2021 the airline signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the New Zealand Government to develop domestic SAF production capacity. The airline is also working with aircraft manufacturers, including Airbus, to hasten the arrival of zero-emissions aircraft. In addition, the airline is pursuing opportunities around electric and hydrogen-powered aircraft as an option for shorter domestic and regional flights, with ambitions to have electric aircraft in its fleet by 2030.

Small steps lead to greater leaps 

As the world reopens and businesses revamp their travel programs, for many, priorities are shifting. Consolidating the needs of their employees with the needs for the planet, while maintaining a healthy bottom line is a delicate balance, but it’s not impossible. Small impacts are greater than no impact and taking an interest in doing better already puts you ahead. Talk to your people about what sustainability means to them and what changes in your program would be meaningful. Commit to what you can do now and plan to do more in 6 months or a year.