As sustainability becomes a more core component of corporate travel programs, developing a foundation of accurate data for those programs remains a key challenge, particularly as methodologies among suppliers can vary.
Just as Prism once established itself as synonymous with corporate contract management data, Thrust Carbon is increasingly becoming the authority on carbon footprint management. Having already partnered with most of the largest travel management companies and several large corporate travel programs as of last year, it continued that growth this year, in particular building on its partnership with SAP Concur by being one of the sources of sustainability data in its overhauled booking experience. Newly established partnerships this year have included providing emissions data to the core platform of TMC technology provider TripStax and working with the U.K.'s Rail Delivery Group to create a rail carbon calculator.
In total, Thrust has tripled its customer base in 2023, including "a host of new TMCs" and two corporate clients that are among the world's largest travel programs, according to co-founder and director Mark Corbett.
Having already branched out into hotels with its Hotel Sustainability index, Thrust Carbon also expanded into the group space this year, launching Thrust Events, an emissions-measuring application for event management suppliers with as many as 50,000 annual events. The tool lets manager input data on attendees, venues and transportation and receive an emissions report as well as recommendations on how to make events more sustainable.
Shortly after that launch, Thrust Carbon and CWT announced an events carbon footprint calendar specific for CWT planners.
For Corbett, continued growth is a moral imperative.
"Frankly, we cannot move quickly enough to tackle the planetary and existential crisis in which we are engulfed," according to Corbett. "Profits will not continue as normal as the climate crisis impacts the cost of energy, supply chains, and the price of doing business."