AmTrav CEO Jeff Klee is getting frustrated by tokenism and perfunctory action when it comes to sustainability and corporate travel.
On the 2022 business travel conference circuit, sustainability and purposeful travel were all the rage. Panelists at events large and small touted the urgency to reduce travel and, with it, carbon emissions. Given the chorus of consent on the issue, one could be forgiven for assuming that the effectiveness and virtuousness of minimizing travel is settled law. Even ChatGPT agrees that “reducing the amount of flying can contribute to efforts to address climate change.”
But before we permanently throw business travel into the plastic straw category, I’d like to offer a different view. It’s not to cast doubt on climate change. On the contrary, it starts with the premise that our current trajectory really is unsustainable. But serious problems demand serious thinking, discourse and solutions – not virtue signals or symbolic gestures.
For all the talk of reducing flying, we should keep in mind that air travel accounts for only 2.5 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Business travel is only a fraction of all air travel (leisure plus cargo make up the majority). And businesses that are willing to reduce travel represent only a small fraction of that fraction – and even they are only talking about some of their travel. Will a tiny subset of a tiny subset really move the needle?
A successful effort to curb business travel would have consequences beyond just the environment. Over the last three or four decades, growing demand for air travel has spurred investment and innovation, leading to lower costs and increasingly more affordable travel – a virtuous cycle that has created jobs, improved living standards and made the wonder of travel accessible to a much broader swath of the population. If the goal now is to reduce demand to choke off supply, success would reverse that. The results would include fewer flights, higher fares that price less affluent travelers out of the market, lower levels of investment in the sector and, paradoxically, weaker incentives to build more fuel-efficient planes.
But none of this matters as much as the basic question: do we really want to save humanity by making ourselves less human? Face-to-face interaction is not a vice or an indulgence. It makes life worth living. Efforts to get outside our bubbles and connect with people should be celebrated, not shamed. I know we’re being told that same-day trips and internal face-to-face meetings can’t be justified, but by what standard? At my company, I worry about our post-Covid hires who have rarely if ever met their co-workers. On a Zoom meeting, you might be able to get through an agenda, but how many people are fully engaged like they would be in person? During breaks, people retreat to their kitchens by themselves instead of to a break area with their co-workers. Is that difference not significant? Are things like culture, camaraderie and collaboration not important because they’re too hard to measure? The greatest benefits of in-person meetings are rarely on the pre-meeting agendas, a reality that the new ROI calculators just can’t account for. In our quest to root out travel that isn’t purposeful, we are forgetting the very purpose of travel.
I am not sure exactly how we can solve our climate crisis, but I know we won’t solve it by giving up that which we want and need. It is objectively true and arguably good that most people – Americans especially – won’t accept solutions that ask them to compromise too much. Only the most ardent activists wanted the tiny, slow electric cars that first hit the market. It wasn’t until Tesla showed that a car can be fast, cool and eco-friendly that everyone became an environmentalist. That’s what it will take with air travel. The ultimate solution will have to be technological, not behavioral, so we can all have our cakes and eat them, too.
I’m skeptical of the impact of token reductions in travel, but that is not to say that we should all just sit back and wait for someone else to invent something. I think it’s great that many travelers and companies are voting with their wallets and choosing more fuel-efficient aircraft. Such decisions could positively influence airline fleet decisions. Some are paying extra for sustainable aviation fuel, which is also admirable. We should seek ways to support – with words, money and votes – public and private grants or prizes aimed at those innovating in this space. Carbon capture, hydrogen powered planes and projects like these all sound promising, but the ultimate solutions are probably yet to be imagined.
You might wonder, if I have my way, how will all these conferences fill their agendas if they remove the obligatory sustainability panels that preach how we all need to cut back on our travel? It’s true that we as an industry love to have repeated conversations about topics, however important, that we can address in ways divorced from reality. But even if we skip the cut-travel panels, there’s no reason that has to change.
We still have NDC.
This Op Ed was created in collaboration with The Company Dime‘s Editorial Board of travel managers.
Jeff always is so eloquent in his commentary in saying what others are thinking. His comments are logical and thought provoking.
Haha! Jeff is a breath of fresh (non-greenhouse gas) air – and I do agree with most of what he says. My only issue with the article is that it doesn’t leave a lot of opportunity for “every little bit helps” … who knows, maybe it doesn’t.
I, too, tire of talking about travel sustainability. As we delve more into our program, we find it very difficult to make any kind of meaningful change.
I think it’s important for every traveler to ask themselves – do I need to go? NEED. And if that answer yes, for any of the reasons Jeff outlines, then go. But I still believe we should focus on defining and promoting purposeful travel. I don’t think purposeful travel is going to harm the innovation referenced.
I don’t know many travel programs saying we’re going to cut 50% of business travel to “go green.” We have to get in the minds of travelers that they play a part, and I, just a little bit, feel this article gives people enough wiggle room to say let somebody else do it.
I think this article is spot on! Well done, Jeff!
Jeff – Always prepared to challenge and absolutely rightly so, thank you.
Of course we need to celebrate the impact of travel on driving business objectives. The development of social capital to create solutions and opportunities, drive business results and ultimately drive business which enhances our lives is a very real benefit of face-to-face interaction brought about by travel.
This is such a powerful statement: “… do we really want to save humanity by making ourselves less human?” Perhaps this is the ultimate reality of the choices we have to make. Only time will tell.
But the sentence after this is the crux of it for me and illustrates what we can and should be doing now: “Face-to-face interaction is not a vice or an indulgence.” The question is, do enough companies know why they travel for business? If they did would they really subject travel budgets to the extent of cutting we regularly see in Q4.
We believe that every company should take a step back to consider the different reasons why they travel for business, and then define where that face to face interaction brought about as a result of travel brings them significant value over the use of technology to communicate.
The net result may be the same amount of travel, it may be less or even more.
And at the same time, when travel is undertaken, a mindset of driving greater purpose of trips benefits everyone…what else can you do on that trip to bring the company and its people value?
If a company can truly define the value of travel and drives greater purpose of trips, then the travel undertaken is wholly justifiable and then they can look at the application of efficiencies within the program and the sector to reduce the impact of the travel they undertake.
This is the principle of purposeful travel for us.
Spot on and definitely thought provoking. Love this line
“Face-to-face interaction is not a vice or an indulgence. It makes life worth living”