As sustainable travel policies draw increased scrutiny, EY's Karen Hutchings developed an innovative way to influence travelers to make greener choices and changed travel and meetings policies to effectively combat carbon emissions.
Together with IBM, EY built the Sustainable Travel Approval Tool—"STAT"—which highlights trip-specific carbon emissions and encourages travelers to switch from air to rail, when rail is a viable option. The pre-travel approval automation, now live in 55 countries, also communicates emissions-related data in relatable rather than abstract terms.
"We've seen so many tools out there that quote a lot of numbers, but unless you're an ESG expert, no one knows what these numbers actually mean," Hutchings said. "We want to make sure [our travelers] are fueled with the information they need to make the right decision."
Travelers must gain approval for their trips via STAT prior to accessing EY's online booking tool. Hutchings said approvals are "based on emissions with an FYI of the cost, not the other way around".
Business travel represents more than 70 percent of EY's overall carbon emissions, so in order to reach the company's 2025 net-zero goal, the travel team has "a massive role to play," Hutchings said. As such, the travel team changed policy to eliminate same-day trips, push air travel to rail and plan meetings in venues that are easily accessible via public transport and where are least half of the meals served are vegetarian.
Automated messages also alert travelers when out-of-policy bookings occur and encourage the use of virtual meeting tools as an alternative to travel.
Since the release of EY STAT in 2022, same-day trips have dropped 15 percentage points globally and overall rail bookings have increased by 17 percent. For one participating firm in a location where there is an extensive rail network, EY's rail bookings increased from 20 percent of all travel bookings to 63 percent following implementation of the approval tool.
To date, 31,000 travel requests have been made via STAT and, as a result, the company has saved 203 metric tons of CO2.
EY now is working to integrate emissions data for ground transport and hotel stays, as well as gamification features for travelers, all of which the company plans to roll out in 2024.
Hutchings said STAT has also garnered interest among other companies, so much so that a pharmaceutical company is looking to purchase the tool for themselves.
"The fact that we've developed a tool that has really sparked interest externally, more than any of the other tools that we've developed, is a real positive for me," Hutchings said.
The tool "makes a difference to our employees, but this potentially is going make a difference to the planet, which is actually what it's all about, isn't it?"
After an 11-year tenure at EY, Hutchings plans to depart EY and seek new opportunities in 2024, including as an advisor to a tech start-up.