Transport & Environment has just published its Travel Smart report, assessing the business travel-related emissions of over 200 multinationals. What key lessons have you learned from this study?
Jérome du Boucher - Firstly, the highlight shows that emissions linked to business travel in 2023 are a third lower than in 2019. Quite a significant figure. But, despite this good resultWe also note that almost half of multinationals (44%) have not set targets for reducing their business travel emissions. Yet there is a very strong correlation between having set reduction targets and a concrete effect on reducing emissions. Those that have set targets achieve a 48% reduction in emissions, compared with just 28% for those that have not adopted this policy.
Who are the good and bad performers among French companies?
J. d. B. - In France, for example, Crédit Agricole and Publicis have set the following targets reduction targets and whose emissions are significantly lower than in 2019. Conversely, other companies such as Sodexo, LVMH and Valéo have not set any targets. And not only have their emissions not fallen, but they have even increased significantly. It's really a question of taking charge of this issue internally. As soon as there's political support, it's rolled out operationally in the travel policy, passed on to management, with incentives and targets. That's what gets things moving. Even if there is a general trend towards reporting on environmental issues, that's not enough. Setting an objective is the decisive factor.
However, LVMH and Sodexo may have commitments and publish CSR reports. Does business travel fall outside this framework?
J. d. B. - We are looking specifically at CSR issues related to carbon emissions from aviation and business travel in general. This ranking does not therefore reflect a company's environmental commitment in general, which may take into account a host of other factors which are closer to their core business. We could give them the benefit of the doubt.
Nevertheless, Transport & Environment has a message for companies whose efforts are limited...
J. d. B. - The reason why our ranking focuses on the biggest companies is because of their size. When you're such a large multinational, with so many employees and so much turnover, it seems to us that you've got a lot to live up to. to demand that they pay attention to the emissions from their vehicles. emissions. Adopting an internal policy and setting targets for reducing emissions from air transport is no mean feat. What we are asking them to do is to be vigilant about their duty to protect their employees, which is a far more complex matter.
Conversely, there are some good performers in your rankings. What good practices would you like to promote?
J. d. B. - The first thing we want to highlight is that we have a specific target for air travel. It's less abstract. Managers and teams can really take it on board. But we would also like to see other good practices emerge, such as encouraging people to take the train rather than the plane. Or, when that's not possible, for example for a business trip across the Atlantic, to think about grouping several meetings together into a single trip, rather than doing it piecemeal and having to come back a few weeks later. Or consider whether a meeting could be held by videoconference before seeing each other in person, perhaps in six months' time. These alternatives have a concrete effect.
However, Transport & Environnement is not advocating a ban on air travel. In your view, we can still be productive, but by travelling less.
J. d. B. - In the TravelSmart campaign, we are recommending the adoption of a target to reduce emissions from air travel by less than 50% in 2030 compared with 2019. A realistic objective as it has already been adopted by a number of companies. In our roadmap published nearly three years ago, we are in no way saying that we should never fly again, but that we need to act on the various levers for decarbonising air travel. Among these, business travel is a very significant one, because it accounts for a significant proportion of the sector's emissions. The Covid crisis has sharply accelerated the reduction in the use of air travel. We can capitalise on the progress made during the pandemic. The good practices that have been implemented have not only an immediate effect, but also a positive impact. a lasting effectThe trend is set to continue in the years to come. This new way of thinking about business travel can benefit everyone - company finances, employee well-being and the planet.
Sustainable fuels are the major lever for decarbonising air transport. But large-scale production has been slow to take off. Could major companies help airlines to develop this sector, in particular through purchase contracts?
J. d. B. - Absolutely, especially for the types of alternative fuel that are the most virtuous but also the most expensive, i.e. synthetic fuels. For an airline, signing long-term purchase contracts with producers is something quite new. Their business model is not yet really designed for this. Their financial stability does not allow them to fully deristify synthetic fuel production projects. But if the efforts of these companies are combined with those of the major corporationsFor example, companies that are among the Top 25 Fliers could play a role. We're already seeing this with Microsoft and Google, who have signed very large purchase contracts. As a multinational has the capacity to make longer-term commitments, it provides a really welcome financial guarantee, particularly in the eyes of the banks, to support production projects.
Under the Biden administration, the production of sustainable fuels, or "SAF", expanded in the United States. Should we now be fearing a step backwards?
J. d. B. - It's difficult to estimate. For the moment, we're fairly spared insofar as a large proportion of the FAS produced in the United States does not meet European standards. In other words, first-generation FAS, produced from food crops such as maize. So, let's assume that FAS production projects in the US fail tomorrow, this should not affect supply in EuropeThis is because they are different types of fuel. What's more, Europe has a stable regulatory framework, which offers visibility. Year in, year out, the FAS market in Europe will take shape over the coming years.
But does the climate scepticism in force at the head of the US government send out the wrong signal across the board?
J. d. B. - What is very clear is the indirect effect of the American political context, which is, to put it mildly, very soft on environmental issues. Companies are surfing this wave to some extent, asking for more environmental protection. making environmental standards more flexible. This is what we saw recently with the Omnibus package, known as the "simplification package", but which is nothing more than a wholesale unravelling of environmental standards. European companies have no qualms about attacking the regulations, which is of course regrettable. Now, I don't have a crystal ball, but we can see that Elon Musk's political stance has affected Tesla's business. European companies will perhaps think twice before taking the plunge and becoming completely unconcerned about environmental issues. They are playing their part from an institutional point of view by calling for environmental standards to be unravelled.
Transport & Environnement also singles out business aviation, with many companies having their own private jets.
J. d. B. - In some companies very easy to use private jets, which add considerably to the emissions bill. As we know, private jets are an excessively polluting means of transport for journeys which, in the vast majority of cases, can be made either by train or by scheduled airliner. In the same way that adapting your internal business travel policy is not an insurmountable task, as some companies have shown, we do not believe that doing without private jets for the most part is an insurmountable mountain to climb.
