Looks like making business and meetings travel greener is, unfortunately for us all, taking a back seat to the recession.
I read about a new survey from the organizers of London's Business Travel & Meeting Show, coming up in February. It found 48% of 1,400 travel buyers polled admitted that the recession has "forced them to re-prioritize their commitment to buying environmentally responsible travel altogether." In addition, 67% of buyers still don't have a green travel policy in place.
Hope sprouts like a green shoot elsewhere in the survey, however. About one in five plan to introduce a "green strategy," and half of the 44% who currently have one in place plan to expand it. “The business travel industry can no longer ignore the importance of being green,” said David Chapple, event director of BTMS, in a press release on their site.
I find these numbers truly ironic -- especially when world leaders have just met at a United Nations conference in Copenhagen to discuss Co2 emissions, with several developed nations pledging billions to help poorer countries clean up their act and cope with shrinking coast lines and other evidence of climate change. Clearly their decisions haven’t filtered down to their countries' corporations yet.
But I sincerely believe that the green revolution, especially in meetings, is here to stay -- although priority for it may be sidetracked for a while. More companies understand the wisdom of it, not just to be better citizens, but also because it makes sense economically. And as the weather patterns and climate catastrophes continue to escalate worldwide, the urgency for action gets more prioritization.
Other surveys back me up on this, like the 2008 survey from CFO Europe Research Services and Amadeus. In it, 11% of CFOs said environmentally friendly travel would benefit their firms via cost savings and operational efficiencies. And 19% said they wanted their travel departments to focus on "driving more environmentally travel policies" through 2010.
As far as meetings go, green is far from dead. More and more hotels continue to invest in the future of a healthy planet by recycling, buying food from local sources, installing energy-efficient lighting, heating and cooling and other wise moves. And more companies are getting better at searching out these services, for example, by requesting information from suppliers via electronic RFPs during sourcing time.
OK, so the economy is first on everyone's mind these days. But green meetings should still remain a priority for companies, especially those that have strong Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) goals. We can't retreat on this front.
Want to find out more about how to make a business case for green meetings at your company? Check out this StarCite whitepaper.
I read about a new survey from the organizers of London's Business Travel & Meeting Show, coming up in February. It found 48% of 1,400 travel buyers polled admitted that the recession has "forced them to re-prioritize their commitment to buying environmentally responsible travel altogether." In addition, 67% of buyers still don't have a green travel policy in place.
Hope sprouts like a green shoot elsewhere in the survey, however. About one in five plan to introduce a "green strategy," and half of the 44% who currently have one in place plan to expand it. “The business travel industry can no longer ignore the importance of being green,” said David Chapple, event director of BTMS, in a press release on their site.
I find these numbers truly ironic -- especially when world leaders have just met at a United Nations conference in Copenhagen to discuss Co2 emissions, with several developed nations pledging billions to help poorer countries clean up their act and cope with shrinking coast lines and other evidence of climate change. Clearly their decisions haven’t filtered down to their countries' corporations yet.
But I sincerely believe that the green revolution, especially in meetings, is here to stay -- although priority for it may be sidetracked for a while. More companies understand the wisdom of it, not just to be better citizens, but also because it makes sense economically. And as the weather patterns and climate catastrophes continue to escalate worldwide, the urgency for action gets more prioritization.
Other surveys back me up on this, like the 2008 survey from CFO Europe Research Services and Amadeus. In it, 11% of CFOs said environmentally friendly travel would benefit their firms via cost savings and operational efficiencies. And 19% said they wanted their travel departments to focus on "driving more environmentally travel policies" through 2010.
As far as meetings go, green is far from dead. More and more hotels continue to invest in the future of a healthy planet by recycling, buying food from local sources, installing energy-efficient lighting, heating and cooling and other wise moves. And more companies are getting better at searching out these services, for example, by requesting information from suppliers via electronic RFPs during sourcing time.
OK, so the economy is first on everyone's mind these days. But green meetings should still remain a priority for companies, especially those that have strong Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) goals. We can't retreat on this front.
Want to find out more about how to make a business case for green meetings at your company? Check out this StarCite whitepaper.
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