BTN Group’s 2023 Sustainable Travel Program Finalist
CASE STUDY: UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
One of the sharpest tools an organization can wield in the effort to reduce the environmental impact of its business travel is the ability to direct travelers’ choices through a centralized, mandated travel program. A travel policy that mandates the selection of sustainable options could quickly show results in the use of lower-emission modes of travel and greener suppliers.
But few large organizations have full structural centralization and the hard policy mandates required to control traveler choice to that extent. As such, many travel managers who wish to guide their business travelers to more sustainable choices need to rely on other tools to make the case.
So it goes at the University of California. A massive system of public education made up of 10 separate campuses—in Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Francisco, Santa Barbara and Santa Cruz—as well as its separate administrative offices and research laboratories, the university has an overall travel policy and preferred suppliers, but is largely decentralized, with each campus managing its travel independently. As of February, the university employed 240,000 people with 50,000 active business travelers among its staff and faculty members. There are no travel mandates imposed them.
To move the university’s business travel in a greener direction, in concert with sustainability efforts in other aspects of the organization, the University of California’s travel management team has relied on education, providing travelers and managers with data illustrating the actual environmental impact of their choices.
The Progress Report
Like many organizations, the university in recent years has prioritized sustainability in its operations. It has created several cross-functional working groups dedicated to the topic, including those focused on studying the effects of climate change as well as others exploring the environmental effects of the university’s transportation as well as its Scope 3 carbon emissions, which includes business travel.
For University of California director of travel management services Debra Almason, the sustainability push offered the travel management team an opportunity not to mandate the selection of low-carbon modes of transport or the choice of particular suppliers, but a chance to educate travelers about the environmental impact of their actions.
To get there, though, “we knew we needed the data,” she said. “The data was going to really provide the impact and tell the story.”
The data that the travel team could offer was an analysis of actual travel patterns that the university’s 50,000 business travelers had taken, particularly in terms of the carbon emissions it generated. Almason and her team, including travel management and information analyst Giesel Velez, set out to design a report that could incorporate emissions calculations based on the actual itineraries of the university’s travelers.
“We began to sketch some items of how we wanted that report to look, and with our third-party reporting provider, identify what we wanted to capture, how we wanted to capture it, and where the sources would be coming from, including the data calculations,” Almason said. “Based on basically a pencil sketch, we sent it to the third-party reporting firm, and they identified that there were a number of ways that we could approach designing this.”
Almason said the university receives travel data from its travel management companies and directly from airlines, some hotels and car rental firms, and Amtrak. Using that data, the travel management team began to construct the foundation of the sustainable travel report.
“When we began establishing the data fields, it was more traditional as far as origins and destinations for top markets. We are breaking it down by airline, car rental, hotel and rail,” Almason said. “We also identified areas that were more customized. We wanted to break down the miles based on short-haul, medium-haul, and long-haul flights. There, we could match that up with not only the miles and emissions but also identify the type of [air] equipment used.”
The university uses the International Civil Aviation Organization’s airline carbon-emissions data, which can be used to assess emissions based on the type of aircraft used and the length of the trip. The report also incorporates rental car use, and whether electric cars were used. The travel management team is working to incorporate more data on hotel emissions into the report, as well as any environmental certifications received by properties used.
While the travel team for years has provided travel activity reports to campuses, the ability to provide emissions data in both pounds and metric tons is a recent wrinkle. “We hope we’re making things easier for them because we are also providing the calculations,” Almason said.
The travel team typically receives monthly reports on the university’s business travel, then distributes the sustainability report to stakeholders. “We manage and monitor the reporting. Reports are sent to leadership upon request,” Almason said. “The campuses, particularly in the travel and accounting departments or those that are members of our UC Travel Council, have administrative rights and can go into the reporting system anytime and run reports they choose.”
Electric Dreams
The university’s travel team also tracks electric car use. California’s typical gas prices—highest in the nation by state, according to AAA in early June—make renting an EV sometimes more cost-effective than a standard gas vehicle, and Almason said the university is working with its car rental suppliers to expand EV fleets and encourage their use, including staging on-campus demonstrations.
“There’s still a lot of travelers that may not be familiar with electric vehicles, and there could be some intimidation,” she said. We are looking with our car suppliers to bring electric vehicles onto the campuses have demonstrations to take a little bit of unknown out of it, and people maybe will want to try an electric vehicle when they make that rental decision.”
The university also is assessing its travel suppliers’ sustainability efforts in its requests for proposals, Almason said. “I can say with full confidence that they are in alignment with us in terms of our mission to support both sustainability and small business,” she said.
The Next Steps
The university is in the process of developing a sustainable travel page for its internal travel portal, which all UC employees can access. “We’re very close to putting it in production,” Almason said. “Employees can go to this page to find travel tips and best practices to reduce the carbon footprint as far as travel goes.” The page will include calculators to assess the emissions impact for a given itinerary of an EV versus a fuel-powered car, and suggestions regarding air travel versus rail or car use. There will be tips for reducing emissions at home, too, she said.
The university has longer-term objectives, including the potential establishment of goals regarding cutting specific levels of carbon emissions related to business travel, but for now is focused on raising the level of awareness of the environmental effects of the decisions travelers and managers are making.
“I’ve been in this industry for almost 40 years, and I think that this particular chapter in my career is the most energizing, uplifting and fulfilling,” Almason said, “because it’s not all about whatever the lowest possible rate is for something. It’s about social responsibility.”
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