The Future: Rethinking corporate travel

The future will involve better planning and understanding in terms of where climatic events will affect business continuity and the need for a response from travel management providers. Travel managers will need to have senior buy-in and backing for plans that promote a more sustainable travel plan. This can also cost more.

Business travel and the emissions it creates, and the effects it has on the climate, is often not contextualised for corporations. The cause and effect are lost. Increasingly, businesses will be able to calculate the real climatic effects their actions and emissions are causing and relay this to travel planners and decision-makers. Context is vital.

For instance, that flight you just booked is the emissions equivalent of heating your home for 18 months. Impactful contextualisation tools and imagery can help people make decisions based on tangible concepts they can understand. Educating travellers to make smarter choices is vital, as is translating sustainability into meaningful metrics that the C-suite and executive travellers can actively get their head around.

De-risking situations will also be crucial, where businesses are provided with more flexible travel policies based on better threat and risk intelligence. That way, buyers can be more aware of the environmental threats and where they may occur.

In this process, the role of the travel manager is elevated in an organisation. Their function becomes more relevant, not less. Travel management companies become strategic partners in delivering on both ESG goals and business continuity planning. Certainly, a proactive, rather than a reactive approach, is essential going forwards.

Having an integrated view of the business, an overall dashboard, will be vital going forwards. One that encompasses business risk, ESG compliance, emissions, threat intelligence and travel management. This will allow corporations to analyse everything in the round.

A more cohesive approach to these issues will also come over time. This will allow corporations to rethink what responsible travel looks like, where travel management companies do the heavy lifting to provide services, plus frameworks and models that can provide insight.

How can travel managers ensure their organisation’s C-suite is taking this issue seriously? On our current trajectory the effects of climate change are only likely to become worse as the years progress. Business continuity will also top the agenda as the risks to operations intensifies. How staff travel, how much they travel and to where – to keep corporations up and running – will become a strategic, boardroom imperative. Watch this space.

We are now integrating and interacting with our clients at a much deeper level. Rethinking travel is part of this process as issues around climate change and business continuity come to the fore.

Ian Ferguson, Reed & Mackay Partner, Advisory