Travel reduction targets are fast becoming a key ESG measurement… Climate leading companies are already quoting their targets, and environmental groups are leveraging this information to put pressure on other companies to limit their corporate travel emissions. The pre-covid year 2019 is an obvious benchmark to compare current travel activity against, although this can also be a misleading common benchmark as some companies are in a very different shape now, to how they were three years ago.
For other companies, the environmental pressure may not be being felt yet, because they are still travelling below, or well below the height of 2019. In practice, they have not had to do much to restrict travel activity and any apparent ‘performance’ may just be the result of a slower recovery from the covid period. Their problems will come when greater demand returns, especially if they have claimed to be operating a reduction target!
In the past, it would have been easy to use ‘offsets’ as the back-up against any shortfall. However, as offsets become challenged any company considering a reduction target may feel exposed to the risk of failing against it – which itself can cause inaction.
Fortunately, a voluntary purchase of Sustainable Aviation Fuel may be the ideal INSURANCE that a company needs. It can also be a highly effective way of demonstrating increased performance against its stated target.
A company setting a target of say 75% versus 2019 but forecasting a trajectory to say 80% can cover the shortfall with a voluntary SAF purchase. Equally, a company aiming to achieve 75% may choose to beat its target and reduce emissions further with a volume SAF purchase. similarly a company in high travel growth can cap its environmental impact using SAF.
This combination of target, action, and risk protection looks like an ideal way forward to me.