BTN Group’s 2023 Sustainable Travel Program Finalist
CASE STUDY: AON
Global professional services and management consulting firm Aon says it is “in the business of better decisions.” Increasingly, those decisions take sustainability and the planet into account.
The $12.5 billion revenue company is headquartered in London with North American operations based in Chicago. It operates in more than 120 countries and territories.
Abigail Neary, who leads the corporation’s global sustainability efforts and chairs its net-zero steering committee, says the focus on sustainability is the culmination of a number of forces coming together over a number of years—part regulatory, part customer, partly from the C-suite and partly from the grassroots levels of the organization.
Big-Picture Commitments
“We have the ESG commitment of our CEO and the C-Suite, we’ve got a lot of passion from colleagues and clients are asking for this. There’s a lot of regulation in EMEA and—in particular the U.K.—that we’ve been following,” she said.
Aon’s drive for sustainability has three pillars:
• Its own decarbonization efforts and investments in sustainability
• Work to accelerate clients’ climate resiliency and response
• Convening leaders and organizations to collaborate and scale its ambitions
At the heart of Aon’s sustainability efforts is a commitment to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, validated by the Science-Based Targets initiative.
The company’s emissions footprint comes largely from the supply chain, real estate and travel and has focused its efforts in those areas. By 2022, the company had reduced emissions by 16 percent on 2019 levels.
“Aon has also signed on to support the Task Force on Climate Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) and works with the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board Alliance to participate in a multi-stakeholder forum with the goal of creating a common language, disclosures, and discourse around sustainability issues focused on finance,” Aon sustainability senior manager Amy Newkirk told BTN.
Aon is also a founding member of ClimateWise, part of the Centre for Sustainable Finance in the U.K.
“ClimateWise is uniquely positioned to bring together insurance industry organizations, academics and global sustainability leaders to respond to the risks and opportunities of climate change,” said Newkirk.
The company is also engaged at an international level with making investment and insurance sustainable. It is a signatory to the UN’s Principles for Sustainable Insurance (PSI) and the UN Principles for Responsible Investing and is represented on the PSI board. This works to develop frameworks for the insurance industry addressing ESG risks and opportunities.
Sustainable sourcing is a key strategy, and eight of Aon’s top 10 suppliers have set their own targets with SBTi.
“We work closely with suppliers to understand their existing carbon reduction commitments and strategies and encourage them to take steps toward those goals, in addition to considering future options to change suppliers,” said Newkirk. “Because many of our clients are also our suppliers, we see a significant opportunity for mutual collaboration.”
Neary added that supplier sustainability also includes a commitment for Aon to work with small, medium and diverse businesses and growing their capabilities in the community.
Travel, Mtgs. in the Spotlight
Business travel and meetings are an important source of carbon emissions for the company, which has some 50,000 frequent travelers.
Kelly Pereda, Aon’s director of global travel and meetings operations, says this supplier focus is key. “In the travel space, we’re very cognizant of how we partner with our suppliers and because it’s to our mutual benefit,” she said.
“Through annual [request-for-propopsals] requirements, we ensured hotels were meeting sustainability standards and incorporated those into our global hotel program,” said Newkirk. “Working with our fleet and car rental providers, we’re moving toward electrifying fleet where possible. With airlines, it’s important we work closely when data reporting is presented and help influence the next generation of services and common goals.”
One of the flagship initiatives in the travel space relates to the use of sustainable aviation fuels.
Aon was the first client of American Express Global Business Travel to join the Avelia SAF pilot announced by the travel management company and Shell Aviation in 2022. Avelia is a book-and-claim solution for business travel which initially offers corporates access to around one million gallons of SAF, which Amex GBT says is enough to cover 15,000 business traveler flights.
“The SAF will be certified in line with the regulatory standards set within the country of delivery and purchase commitments by pioneering corporations are all supporting market development and driving investment to accelerate global supply,” said Newkirk.
She added, “The business travel community is highly influential and concentrated, compared to leisure travel. While representing a relatively smaller portion of aviation, business travel can play a large role in leading the transition toward net-zero aviation. As the first corporate adopter of this program, Aon is investing to ensure a sustainable pipeline of SAF is available to reduce travel emissions now and in the future.”
One of the steps in raising awareness with colleagues has been making carbon emissions data available in the online booking tool and mobile apps during the past 12 months. Emissions data also is included on invoices.
“Our mission is to simplify and standardize the business travel booking process, and to deliver services throughout the travel lifecycle that are aligned with Aon’s goals and policies, including making travel more sustainable and contributing our net-zero commitment,” said Newkirk.
To raise awareness aat Aon, the travel team has worked on a number of initiatives, including running a series of webinars.
“One of the major achievements of these quarterly webinars was the development of the Aon Sustainable Meetings and Events Guide. Driven by an interest in making events more sustainable, this guide was developed in collaboration with colleagues from across Aon, including the meetings and events, travel and sustainability teams. A cross-functional team was deployed to help develop materials to guide future events,” said Newkirk.
The team has also posted content on Aon Avenue, the company’s Yammer social media communities and through bi-weekly leadership messages.
Offsetting currently is not part of Aon’s approach to sustainability. “Our plan is really ‘reduce and replace.’ We can reduce usage, reduce consumption, reduce emissions and replace high emitting things with lower emitting things,” said Neary. “At the same time, we have made investments in offset partners. We have a collaboration with a with an organization called Revalue Nature and there are development carbon offset projects.”
Does the commitment to sustainability go as far as reducing demand for business travel? As a consultancy, Aon is driven primarily by client requirements, and Pereda said that clients and colleagues still recognize the value of face-to-face meetings.
She said despite that, the company has limited its travel footprint through its Smart Working hybrid working strategy introduced due to the pandemic. The company said that Smart Working’s aim is “to create a healthy, productive, inclusive, and sustainable way of working.”
What does success look like for Aon?
“We are measuring our success by how we can achieve net zero by 2030 and help to really achieve those… agreements that are part of the Paris Agreement,” said Neary, adding that true success would be “if the world starts to decarbonize on the 1.5 degree pathway” with all companies making smarter decisions.
Built with Shorthand