Greeley Koch
Two important new
tools launched in May and June will help planners and
travel managers quantify the impact their business travel has on
the environment.
Southlake, Texas-based Sabre Travel
Network added a feature to its travel booking products that will
produce reports detailing a company’s total air travel, the amount
of fuel burned, and the corresponding amount of carbon dioxide and
other greenhouse gases produced as a result. The data can be
organized by department, segment type, cost center or date.
The Association of Corporate Travel
Executives, based in Alexandria, Va., teamed with London-based The
CarbonNeutral Co. to produce its own Carbon Calculator, which also
estimates emissions and offers tips on how companies can reduce or
rectify environmental impact. The calculator tool is available to
ACTE members on the association’s website (www.acte.org).
Once businesses quantify their impact
on the environment, they can take steps to “offset” their emissions
by supporting clean energy producers or other environmentally
conscious initiatives, such as reforestation.
On environmental matters, companies in
the United States have much to learn from their European
counterparts, said Greeley Koch, president of ACTE. “In Europe,
being carbon-neutral is now even part of the RFP process, since
companies that focus on this want to work with like-minded
companies. Yet the carbon-neutral calculator is a great awareness
tool for our members in the United States, Canada and Asia as their
companies come online with the corporate social
responsibility philosophy.”
ACTE plans to make its October
conference, to be held in Barcelona, Spain, the association’s first
international carbon-neutral event. “The association is very
sensitive to this issue,” Koch said.