A Guide to Carbon Offset and Sustainable Travel
The first carbon offset project dates back to 1989, but carbon offsets began being sold around the turn of the latest century. Delta was the first major airline to launch an offset program for customers in 2007. Although adoption of voluntary carbon offsets has been slow among airline consumers, a growing number of enterprises are making concerted efforts to reduce emissions through offsets. Find out how Rocketrip simplifies calculating carbon offsets to make business travel more sustainable.
Reasons To Calculate Carbon Offset
One of the first steps toward taking environmental responsibility for business operations involves recognizing the emissions produced during operations and business travel. Quantifying the carbon footprint of a company and its employees allows for practical measures to be taken to achieve sustainability.
The United Kingdom is currently the only country with carbon reporting requirements for companies publicly listed on major exchanges. The inclusion of information on business travel emissions can make carbon offsets a meaningful way to reduce the carbon footprint of an enterprise or enable a company to strive toward zero net emissions.
Business travelers and companies have relied on third-party calculation tools and airline-specific programs to calculate offsets in the past. It is now easier to accurately calculate offsets and choose from carbon reduction or sustainable energy projects.
Carbon Offset Emission Standards
The Gold Standard is the highest global standard for energy efficiency and renewable energy projects. This and other international standards governing carbon credits or offsets ensure that exchanges correspond to the removal of an approximately equal amount of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
Established standards are helpful for assessing the legitimacy of offsets and measuring the carbon footprint of enterprises. The Greenhouse Gas Protocol GHG Emissions Calculation Tool is a useful tool for estimating corporate emissions. While businesses may take various measures to monitor resource consumption and promote sustainability, Rocketrip and Thrust Carbon simplify offsetting the environmental impact of travel.
Finance and sustainability teams can work with corporate travel managers to select verified carbon offset products provided by Thrust Carbon. A helpful Sustainability widget then presents employees with offset options for business trips.
The Future of Carbon Offsets
Carbon offsets are likely to play an important part in international efforts to reduce emissions. While technology makes it possible to reduce business travel, some travel remains necessary, and companies and employees can take proactive steps to offset the emissions produced by trips.
Although less than 1% of individual air travelers voluntarily pay more to offset carbon emissions and only a few airlines offer carbon offset programs, the importance of sustainability is likely to increase over the course of the 2020s and beyond. Resources that simplify the process of calculating offsets can promote more environmentally responsible approaches to business travel.
The maturing market for carbon offsets is also leading to an increasing variety of offset options for air, rail and road travel as well as commutes, hotel stays and other aspects of work and life that carry environmental costs. In general, transportation is the largest source of emissions other than electricity production in the United States, so it is likely that offsets will remain relevant in this area.
Making Business Travel More Sustainable
Several factors determine the carbon emissions generated during a flight. The calculator in the Rocketrip booking interface accounts for the mileage of a trip. Other factors such as the type of aircraft, class of travel, occupancy rate, time of day and weather conditions also impact carbon offset calculations.
Factoring in the environmental implications of the distance and duration of trips can change the way that employees and companies approach business travel. The increase in virtual meetings during the COVID-19 pandemic has reduced some business travel. Alternative modes of transportation such as cars, buses or trains can also be more carbon-efficient than plane travel.
Making offsetting emissions a regular part of business travel is a step toward more sustainable operations. The Sustainability widget makes it as easy for an employee to find a carbon offset as it is to save money with the Savings widget or stay apprised of changing public health and safety conditions at domestic or international destinations by checking the Safety widget.
A Booking Tool That Calculates Savings
Rocketrip provides users with cost-saving and informational features in addition to carbon offset choices. The widgets in this tool include Savings, Sustainability and Safety. When used with Concur for travel and expense management, this tool connects users with flights, rental cars and activities in selected destinations.
The Savings widget notifies employees who are booking travel whether choosing a particular flight will save money, an amount that is then split between the company and the employee. Business travelers who opt to spend less can redeem 50% of the saved amount on merchandise, experiences or charitable donations.
On average, companies that use Rocketrip save between 20% to 30% a year on travel. These savings are split between the employees who book travel and the corporations that send employees on business trips.
Carbon Offset and Safety Features
The Sustainability widget in Rocketrip helps users select more environmentally friendly travel options. This feature also gives managers or stakeholders the ability to pull up travel histories for individual employees to monitor contributors to the carbon footprint of an enterprise and determine ways to reduce overall impact.
The newest Safety widget is offered in partnership with Sherpa. This widget provides information about the COVID-19 pandemic that is relevant to a destination. Information about travel restrictions, quarantine policies, mask usage and any relevant documentation and testing requirements is readily available in this widget to keep employees who are traveling for business informed and safe.
Companies that use Rocketrip empower employees to easily calculate carbon offset when booking business travel. In addition to partnering with Thrust Carbon to offer carbon offsets, a partnership with Sherpa supplies real-time information about the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic during booking. Businesses can meet all of their needs for safe and more sustainable travel by using Rocketrip to book business travel and offset carbon emissions. We give the traveler the choice to select the most environmentally friendly trip and then offer the company to offset their entire corporate travel’s CO2 emissions. With this implementation we help corporations with their goal to become carbon neutral.
To learn more about incorporating sustainable practices into your company’s travel policy, schedule a free demo with Rocketrip.
