Lauren Hook is head of sustainability at travel management company CTM
It is now widely understood that business travel plays a role in climate change and the logical next step is minimising its impact. That is why corporates all over the globe are developing and implementing sustainable travel strategies – strategies that may preference domestic rail over air travel, where hotel selection meets a minimum standard, where EV cars and taxis are used for ground transport, or where each traveller or strategic business unit must travel within quarterly or yearly carbon budgets, and so on.
Yet even the most strategic, well-considered and well-intentioned sustainable travel plan will be ineffective unless that corporate has employee buy-in and compliance – and motivating employees to a shared business objective is not always straightforward.
Compliance challenges
Why is it so challenging to get employee buy-in for an issue that affects every single one of us? I believe there are several blockers in play, and the biggest of these is perhaps when sustainability initiatives are not integrated in the organisation’s business strategy and performance targets.
When this is the case, effort to comply can be viewed as an optional extra workload outside of ‘business as usual’. This is compounded when contributions aren’t recognised and/or the sustainability function doesn’t sit in the appropriate business area with the capability and processes to best deliver.
On the other hand, when sustainability priorities and directions are folded into business strategy and the organisational importance of sustainability directives is clearly communicated and understood by employees as in scope for their role, corporates can expect to receive more support and compliance from employees.
When the message communicated from leadership is clear and consistent and the corporate’s travel booking tools enable and recognise preferred behaviour, we increase the likelihood of achieving sustainability targets. In practise this may look like empowering travel bookers to search and select flights with the lowest carbon emissions or selecting an EV rental car or understand both the financial and carbon cost of their travel at the time of booking.
Traveller consultation
It’s important to remember that employees – travellers – are key stakeholders of the business and their key contribution in determining its material sustainability topics is valuable. If the sustainability strategy and targets are not aligned with employee interests, the organisational importance and benefits of the sustainability programme won’t be clearly understood or prioritised and the likelihood of compliance and therefore success in achieving targets will reduce.
The best route to securing behaviour change requires a combination of professional responsibility and personal engagement, winning hearts and minds. Without it, the business will not achieve its targets and its progress will be significantly diminished. In a worst case scenario, sustainability efforts may even be perceived by employees as disingenuous and lip service for the benefit of external stakeholders. When this happens, it’s unlikely they will believe they should apply to them, and they disengage with the expectations and demands being made of them.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, a good corporate travel manager and HR team will consult and engage their travelling employees from the outset when creating a sustainability strategy. By engaging employees early, it’s possible to understand which sustainability topics matter to them and which they are most impacted by. Building employee-identified topics into the strategy means employees will feel a value-based alignment to the cause and are more likely to comply.
Additional benefits include:
• Improving workplace culture, wellness and productivity because employees feel heard and valued by their organisation;
• Attracting and retaining high-performing employees;
• Improving the likelihood of achieving corporate sustainability targets, which – as has already been said – creates a positive impact on reducing carbon emissions across the business travel sector.
Securing employee buy-in
In addition to early engagement, how else can travel, HR and sustainability managers secure employee buy-in for their sustainable travel programme?
Strong, clear and regular communication about the what and the why will help employees understand why complying with the business’s sustainability strategy is relevant to them, and mandatory for social license for the business to operate and the planet.
Communicate expectations as early as possible. As discussed earlier, bringing employee engagement to the fore is key to determining material sustainability issues that are relevant to a business’s travellers and its overall desired direction and outcomes.
Sustainability must be embedded throughout the entire business within the relevant operational areas – not just across the travel programme – with key deliverables in mutually agreed KPIs and contributions and successes recognised and rewarded. In other words, sustainability should become an organic part of the employee’s working day.
Empowering employees to deliver on sustainability targets involves reducing friction in decision-making and providing them with the right tools. In practice, this may entail empowering employees with an allocated carbon budget at a group or individual level which influences decisions at the point of sale by serving as a gentle reminder for travellers to be carbon conscious.
To secure buy-in, companies must also routinely and transparently report on their progress against goals and targets, helping employees understand the impact of their decisions.
Finally, it’s really important not to view this process as a one-off, or a tick-box exercise. Select a few key topics to show progress, share this with employees routinely and transparently, make it clear how their contribution – and compliance – has played a role, and seek routine feedback from them. Like all strategies, evolution is key.