Flying for work is becoming trickier for corporate executives as companies look to cut their greenhouse gas emissions. Photograph: iStockThe Swiss Re insurance group has 14,000 employees scattered around the world and if any of them want to fly somewhere for work this year they will need to have a good reason.
Everyone’s emissions are being monitored and very frequent flyers need to be on guard. “If one employee were to travel like mad then we would spot that,” Reto Schnarwiler, Swiss Re’s head of group sustainability, told me. Also there would probably be “a discussion with that individual”. Big Four accounting firm EY, meanwhile, has embedded nudge theory – the idea that small design changes can shift behaviour – into its internal travel booking systems to prod staff to take greener trips. “For example, if they are booking a flight which is returning on the same day we start to nudge them to turn the meeting into a Teams [online] meeting rather than a physical one,” says Steve Varley, EY’s global vice-chairman for sustainability. Or take the train instead.
Most people I have told about these developments in corporate climate action have rolled their eyes and muttered “cost-cutting”. They are quite right to do so. Some companies may be acting to meet ever more exacting net zero targets. But the pandemic was an epic lesson in how much business can be done over Zoom and chief financial officers worldwide have taken note.Those three are among just eight companies to get a top-scoring A grade in the green groups’ ranking.