FCM, the flagship global business travel division of Flight Centre Travel Group operating in 97 countries, has partnered with global climate action project developer South Pole, to launch a new global carbon offsetting program.
FCM has also announced that it will offset all staff travel worldwide once pandemic restrictions allow employees to travel for business purposes again. This step will be backdated to 2019.
The South Pole partnership will allow FCM to support clients in setting up a solution to reduce the carbon impact of their business travel, and will make a significant difference in helping them meet their sustainability goals.
“We’re making sustainability a core pillar of our customer offering for 2021, putting greater focus on guiding and supporting clients with their objectives, particularly in terms of CO2 reporting and a global net zero solution that enables them to contribute to positive climate action,” said Marcus Eklund, Global Managing Director, FCM. “After the travel bans of 2020 enabled companies to reduce their carbon footprint from travel significantly, many are not only re-emphasizing their overall environmental objectives post-Covid, they’re making them an integral part of travel policies.”
FCM can calculate, record and report monthly or quarterly CO2 emissions globally per item for each client, who can then choose from specific climate action projects against which to offset their total carbon footprint. It enables clients to offset against global flights, hotel accommodation, rail bookings, car rental and other business travel components.
FCM and South Pole have come up with a list of 12 positive environmental impact projects from all over the world. The offsetting price for each project ranges from US $3.70 to US $15 per tCO2e, or the amount of greenhouse gasses emitted during a given period. Clients can select up to four projects to suit their budget, geographic area and preferred impact categories.
The partnership also supports the development of FCM’s new sustainability dashboard which shows travellers their individual stats in terms of travel CO2 emissions and enables travel managers to see total carbon footprint and CO2 savings achieved per month.
This helps business travellers make better decisions regarding their carbon footprint, while helping organizations meet their global sustainability goals. The future roadmap for the FCM platform includes functionality whereby the sustainability dashboard will also show carbon credits reporting for each client and how emissions translate into offsetting credits and projects.
