Sustainable choices pose cost-saving challenges for planners. Photo Credit: gettyimages/Pogonici
Can you be sustainable with regards to business events while also
saving money? This was the question posed at the recent Think 2022
event, held in Athens and online and organised by FCM Travel and GBTA.
As part of a panel debate, Andrew Cassidy, global travel manager at
entertainment business AMC Networks said he would struggle to balance
costs with sustainability with regards to meetings and events. “How am I
going to convince our CFO that I want to spend more money because for
example, I want to contribute to sustainable aviation fuel or I think
that our hotel programme should be predominantly with
sustainability-certified properties,” he says. “I worry that it's a big
ask, particularly as we come out with a pandemic.”
He added that while his organisation Is controlling the costs of
internal meetings, to the point where these are now more cost-effective,
as conference and events return, travel is becoming more expensive.
“I’m going to struggle to get sustainability and wellness costs over the
line,” he says.
Glen Thorsen, head of partnerships at Thrust Carbon, which builds
technology to help companies operate more sustainably, said that
business had continued in the last 18 months with little or no travel,
“Now it’s a case of taking those learnings and managing that return,’”
he says.
“Data is huge here – historically data for sustainability has been
very generic, which makes it very difficult for it to be a performance
element. We need to make sure all the data we have can power
sustainability to become a better decision metric. Travellers want to
make better decisions and we have to give them the data.”
Thorsen added that this should happen at the point of search and
planning, and it needs to be consistent. “You cannot have carbon budgets
for example that your travellers need to deliver if it does not align
with your reporting. We want to be able to travel; in some cases we can
travel less or we can group things together, by bringing multiple
purposes for trips together and extending those.”