After choosing a carbon calculation methodology and electing how to price their carbon emissions, the tool allows those booking corporate travel to see the carbon price attached to each air travel option.
Companies can then use the accrued carbon prices to finance sustainability initiatives from sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) to electric vehicles.
“Emissions-based carbon pricing enables us to combine economics, sustainability and technology to strengthen our business travel program and boost funding to invest in decarbonisation initiatives such as SAF,” said Sanofi’s global procurement category head, Lucian Alexandru.
“With support from Amex GBT, we are closely aligning our business travel program with company-wide efforts to reduce emissions, while also helping accelerate and prepare for a low carbon future.”
The move comes as Australia’s largest companies are required to begin sustainability reporting.
From January 1 this year, companies with $500 million or more in revenue, assets of $1 billion or more and employing 500 or more people must undertake sustainability reporting. Progressively smaller companies will be required to take on sustainability reporting over the next few years, reaching companies with $50 million in revenue in 2027.
Many smaller companies are likely to be caught up in mandatory sustainability reporting as suppliers to larger companies. Activities such as event and conference attendance will likely be captured in reporting through the environmental cost of travel and the impact of conferences themselves.
“Carbon pricing is a proven mechanism that can help companies make progress towards their sustainability objectives,” said senior vice president of product and engineering at AMEX Global Business Travel, John Sturino.
“Our innovative software can now help customers place a price on carbon and direct investment toward lower-carbon solutions, empowering them to make more informed decisions and address their carbon footprint.”
Meanwhile AMEX Global Business Travel’s vice president of global sustainability, Nora Lovell Marchant, said carbon pricing could help move industries in the right direction.
“Carbon pricing by way of business travel can help shift companies – and the aviation industry at large – towards a more sustainable future,” she said.
“Carbon pricing is imperative, but alone insufficient. We need to combine carbon pricing with decarbonisation. Making carbon more expensive must be combined with making clean more affordable.”
