With over 5,000 global businesses signed up to the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) and committed to taking various steps regarding climate action, for many, environmental impact is a critical consideration – alongside the traditional financial priorities – when making travel decisions.
To empower clients, FCM Consulting has joined forces with CAPA – Centre for Aviation (CAPA), one of the most trusted sources of market intelligence for the aviation and travel industry and their partner, Envest Global, to unveil a new, first in class approach for clients to help them address their environmental aims when planning business travel.
Launching today, FCM’s team of sustainability experts have devised an industry-first service that pairs their methodology alongside insights from the CAPA-Envest Airline Sustainability Benchmarking Report which goes beyond the typical single CO2e metric typically used for sustainability calculations.
FCM is the only Global Travel Management Company to currently have access to this valuable data which provides comparable ranking of airlines incorporating over 10 ‘sustainability parameters’ and is regarded by CAPA as the industry’s single source of truth on emissions, benchmarking airlines and their performance as they transition to net zero operations.
As companies become more astute on all things-sustainability related, FCM understands that the industry must keep pace. According to Glenn Thorsen, Sustainability Lead – FCM Consulting, he believes TMCs must be able to provide deeper and more accurate analysis on travel impact with measurable benefits.
“As sustainability has risen to the top of the agenda, we make it our business to be a step ahead in the evolution of emissions measurement and reporting so that we can help our clients get the best out of their programmes and achieve their goals,” said Thorsen.
“In this rapidly evolving area, it is critical to be able to access independently evaluated industry data pulled from credible, audited reports. Being able to tap into a global airline sustainability rating system is invaluable and will form the cornerstone of an already robust service offering that supports our clients on their sustainability journeys.”
FCM clients will benefit from the ability to leverage more sustainability performance indicators for their air travel strategy where sustainability is concerned, without impacting the quality and consistency of their carbon reporting for established initiatives such as Science Based Targets milestones.
The company anticipates this information will be hugely beneficial to those looking to overlay existing travel policy elements with new sustainability data which is applicable on a macro level to allow for broader strategic decisions in comparison to case-by-case application of existing trip level calculations and reallocation of budget towards airlines that are performing better overall in the new index.
CAPA – Centre for Aviation & CTC – Corporate Travel Community, Global Content & Marketing Director, Marco Navarria, said: “CAPA and Envest Global remain committed to providing objective, data-driven assessment of the environmental sustainability performance of the world’s largest airlines, and being the single source of truth for key industry stakeholders. We are delighted to lend this expertise to FCM and help boost the service offering available to its clients.
“The use of the CAPA/Envest Airline Sustainability Rating system, which rates and ranks each airline’s sustainability performance relative to others, will help businesses make informed decisions related to their corporate programmes. The industry’s ambitious and essential goal to achieve net zero emissions is reliant on reliable data, benchmarking, and analysis from trusted sources.”
Alongside CO2e metrics, the CAPA-Envest index offers an independent and consistent analysis of airlines’ sustainability performance when it comes to the emissions across their entire network and operations.
By providing transparency of key metrics such as passenger CO2e / RPK (revenue passenger KM), passenger CO2e / ASK (available seat KM), passenger load factors, Sustainable Aviation Fuel utilisation and more, allows for better comparisons and determining of airline partners when sustainability is a key factor.