Sometimes choosing a mode of travel is a no-brainer. When schedules are tight or distances are great, air travel is the obvious choice. But for shorter out-of-town trips, local jaunts or just travel to and from the airport, other options come into play. In an era of increasing focus on sustainability, such choices can present opportunities not just for convenience and cost savings, but also the potential to reduce any organization’s carbon impact.
This is not to say that airlines and those they serve are oblivious to such considerations. And it’s true that flying gets more efficient with greater distance, since planes release the most carbon during takeoff and landing and utilize less fuel when cruising, according to Paloma Zapata, CEO of Sustainable Travel International. But when it comes to environmental impact, other factors weigh heavily in the favor of carefully chosen ground travel options.
“While airlines are starting to transition towards more fuel-efficient aircraft and sustainable aviation fuels, these technologies must be drastically scaled up before they will be able to be widely adopted,” Zapata says. For the time being, air travel tends to be the most carbon-intensive mode of travel. “When you factor in business class seats, this can double a passenger’s air travel footprint, since these premium seats typically take up twice as much space as economy.”
But for trips closer to home, there are more sustainable ground transportation options. From trains to rental cars to ride sharing, travel programs can take advantage of a number of choices to support overall sustainability efforts.
In fact, travelers should strive to look for public ground transportation options, such as intercity rail or buses, that emit less carbon and are more energy efficient than flying, says Kara Oldhouser, director of sustainability at Amtrak. In the case of rail travel, she points out, greenhouse gas emissions are as much as 83 percent less than driving and 72 percent less than flying.
“Companies can reduce their carbon impact from business travel by encouraging employees who live within reasonable distance of public ground transportation to explore those options first before considering flying or driving,” she says.
Leading the Charge
Of course, with auto travel, environmental goals may be addressed by placing a priority on the use of electric or hybrid vehicles. That might range from encouraging travelers to select electric vehicles when given such an option, to contracting with companies that are investing heavily in updating their fleets to meet new standards for sustainability.
Hertz, for example, currently has tens of thousands of EVs available for rent at more than 750 locations across 38 states. Casey Rodriguez, senior vice president of corporate and strategic sales, reports that the company’s objective is for one-quarter of its fleet to be electric by the end of 2024. Hertz is already increasing its electric vehicle rentals substantially this year, forecasting nearly two million EV rentals in 2023, a five-fold increase from the previous year. And future plans include working with a broad range of manufacturers to have EVs available at various price points.
In addition, Hertz has developed an online EV content hub for customers along with detailed information about vehicle features, quick guides and videos on how to operate and charge the vehicle, and locations of charging stations.
Similar progress can be seen with ride-share options. With use of more sustainable options like hybrid or electric vehicles, business travelers can reduce carbon emissions by at least 25 percent compared to gas-powered vehicles, according to Susan Anderson, global head of Uber for Business. The company saw over 37,000 monthly active zero-emission vehicle drivers in the third quarter of 2022 in the US, Canada and Europe, quadrupling the volume over the same period a year previously. Looking to the coming decades, Uber plans to become a zero-emissions mobility platform by 2030 in North America and Europe, and globally by 2040.
Uber for Business has also developed a multi-featured sustainability dashboard. It provides info such as low-emission trip totals and percentages, average CO2 emissions per mile, and the total number of carbon emissions emitted by a company across all rides in a given time frame.
“Carbon emissions tracking is especially lacking in the ground transportation space,” Anderson says. With Uber’s recently added features, travel managers can monitor carbon emissions with visual representations and graphs and evaluate progress in addressing both near- and long-term targets. And as users provide feedback on desired tools, Anderson adds, more features and insights will be added in the near future.
Reimagining Mobility
As with other areas on the sustainability front, business travel is likely to see uneven progress in years to come. “The sustainability road ahead is not always clearly signposted, and there will be challenges,” says Charity Rumery, chief revenue officer for HQ, which offers mobility solutions for corporate travel. She advises travel buyers to dive into the detail to create real change. This may be supported by finding a business partner to help you baseline your current emissions, optimize your travel program, and monitor ongoing progress.
She also recommends asking two questions: Does your business or department have assigned individuals who are accountable, responsible and informed about your sustainability agenda? And how frequently will you assess the data and readily roll out changes to improve your environmental impact? Answering these questions and taking action will require participation from multiple teams, including leadership, ESG divisions, travel managers and department heads, Rumery says. “This is critical when working toward goals as complex and expansive as sustainability,” she notes. “If we want to accelerate progress and the speed of change, we must collaborate.”
Rodriguez is optimistic that travel managers and sustainability teams can take meaningful steps when looking to reduce and counterbalance carbon impact. Perhaps most impactful is developing travel policies that encourage or incentivize EV rentals or selection of other environmentally friendly options.
He adds that efforts to counterbalance emissions can also be supported by purchasing offsets. To that end, Hertz has partnered with Rubicon Carbon, which is accelerating the development of high-integrity carbon projects at enterprise scale.
Don Moore, senior vice president, business rental sales and global corporate accounts for Enterprise Holdings, foresees ongoing progress. “As we continue to evolve our operations to integrate the latest vehicle innovations and meet the needs of employees and customers, we’re driven to create a mobility future that is more seamless, accessible and more sustainable,” he says. “Reimagining the mobility ecosystem is one of the most exciting opportunities ahead.”
That kind of progress may benefit from a well-planned focus on sustainable travel in targeted communications. Zapata advocates educating employees as well as clients about more climate-friendly travel options through training, awareness materials, incentive programs, or corporate travel policies.
In the process, Anderson encourages taking a critical look to make sure travel programs are aligned with the values of employees and other stakeholders. Many employees care about making sustainable choices and are willing to reduce the environmental impact of their business trips.
“The problem is that they often don’t know where to begin,” she says. “Companies can help by making sustainable travel choices easy and obvious for employees by giving them the data they need to make informed and eco-friendly travel plans.” Embracing the ‘you can’t manage what you can’t measure’ philosophy, she says putting the most sustainable transportation options in front of employees from the beginning is the first step toward encouraging greener choices.
Next Steps to Net Zero
At the same time, it can be a mistake to assume travelers are equally willing to make sustainability a primary goal. “Travel managers need to understand what their travelers are comfortable with when it comes to traveling,” Moore says. While updating travel programs to align with the company’s sustainability goals, traveler preferences should also be kept in mind.
A focus on transparency should also be a high priority, according to Oldhouser. This can include sharing your corporation’s priorities with suppliers and prospective business partners, as well as holding them to high standards. “Align with transportation partners that not only share your goals in word but in practice, and are transparent with how they plan on attaining them,” she says. In the same spirit, be sure to request frequent reporting related to sustainability.
Last but not least, get – and use – the right data. “If you’re not already doing so, start measuring the carbon footprint of your business travel,” Zapata says. “This will give you a better understanding of how many emissions you are generating in total and per trip, and what they are coming from.”
Having such data will make it much easier to identify opportunities to cut emissions and reduce your carbon footprint going forward. Ideally, the information will support an annual reassessment of progress toward reduction goals.
As an added measure, Zapata says, businesses should include carbon offsets as part of a short-term climate strategy. “Not only do offsets allow them to balance out the emission that are generated, but they also play a crucial role in supporting the global transition to net zero,” she notes. This contributes incrementally to expanding clean energy infrastructure and reducing dependence on fossil fuels, thereby restoring ecosystems and making communities and ecosystems more resilient to the devastating impacts of climate change.
Challenges notwithstanding, this is a chance for experienced travel managers to shine, according to Rumery. “It’s an opportunity to make a positive environmental impact and take an active role in the fight against climate change,” she says. With a full understanding of the potential offered by sustainable ground transportation, the time is right for providing insights on possible policy changes and the best next steps for real impact.
