BCD Travel has an innovation that enables customers to set sustainability goals and carbon targets, drive traveller behaviour change, apply carbon taxes (or allocate carbon emissions reduction and removal project costs at the point of sale), and report on emissions and progress.
BCD’s sustainability offering will be available to all clients, regardless of their progress in sustainable business travel. The solution is currently being piloted with Siemens and will be available to customers in the first quarter of 2025.
“BCD Travel prioritises sustainability. Yet it has been challenging for our customers to make their travel programmes more sustainable,” said April Bridgeman, Senior VP at BCD Travel and MD of Advito.
“Until now, our clients have had to spend significant time and energy identifying, selecting and deploying a range of sustainability providers that aren’t easy to integrate together or into their programmes. Along with SQUAKE and Advito, we decided to help by bringing what was once a fragmented set of features and suppliers together to simplify the process. And we added some new features along the way.”
This allows corporate travel programmes to centrally set targets, decide upon sustainability policies to achieve them, and distribute these across online and offline booking channels for each employee.
The technology provider established tooling to provide active nudging and steering tools within BCD agent front-ends and online booking tools (OBTs). The tool encourages travellers to travel less and travel better.
In addition to making travellers aware of air, train, hotel and ground transportation emissions using one of multiple calculation methodologies, the tool displays the carbon cost of each trip.
While the CO2 emissions consumption of different travel options has been visible to travellers in OBTs for some time, it has been difficult to use the same methodology across the point of sale, itineraries and invoices, and reporting, says the company. This offering solves that challenge.
For companies that have decided to allocate an actual carbon tax or require a traveller to invest in a carbon reduction project or sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) for each trip, BCD now has automated solutions.
The offering includes both point of sale and aggregated fee allocation options, including SAF procurement or CO2 compensation certificates.
BCD and SQUAKE will provide carbon budgeting, forecasting and reporting tools to help clients set and manage carbon targets.
