ESG Metric: GHG Scope 3 emissions
Ease of implementation: Hard
Suitable for: Companies with international travel
Suggested functional lead: HR, Finance department, Logistics manager
Summary
We suggest booking non-stop flights to reduce excess emissions from take-off and landing of multiple flights as well as the additional miles travelled. Implement a new policy to avoid new layover bookings, ensuring managers and departments can be held accountable if they do not meet the new flying standards. Some layover may be unavoidable, thus, ensure the department have good reasoning for it and can be held accountable. Ensure you have measured annual aviation travel emissions prior to the new policy. We suggest using 2019 as a baseline to avoid any changes in flying habits due to the pandemic. Measure and monitor the change in flying habits and share any successes both internally and externally.
Background Information
Since 2013, airline emissions have increased by 32%, which is 70% faster than projected by the UN. This is partially due to business travel and avoidable layovers. A layover is a stop-over journey at an additional airport instead of a direct flight. This means that the amount of fuel required for a layover is that of two or more flights. A direct flight is more time efficient and will also reduce fuel required and, thus, emissions produced as planes emit almost 50% of their carbon during take-off and landing.
Implementation Steps
Measure current aviation travel emissions
Collaborate with HR to collect and analyse data on the number of flights taken in a given year. Analyse which flights included layovers and identify the extra distance flown to the layover airports. We suggest using 2019 as a baseline year to eliminate any decrease in flying habits due to the pandemic.
Assess budget for aviation travel
In some instances, layover flights can be slightly cheaper than direct flights. Work with the finance department to assess the current budget for business flights and adapt the budget if necessary. You may want to consider keeping the budget the same to force a reduction in the number of flights taken throughout your business.
Eliminate new layover bookings
Set a new Corporate Travel Policy in place to eliminate layovers for future flights. If this cannot be eliminated fully, ensure the policy at least applies to any short-haul flights under five hours.
Measure and monitor
Ensure you keep monitoring flight bookings. Hold departments accountable if they are not abiding by the new policy and investigate why. Measure the difference made by the new policy using the 2019 baseline. Publish the reduction in emissions with the team and in an external report, if possible, to share best practices with other organisations.