As sustainability becomes a growing priority for travelers, Kevin Yeh, Senior Director of Product Management at American Express Global Business Travel (Amex GBT), recognizes that environmental considerations are now a key factor in travel decision-making.
While emissions are not the sole criterion for travelers, there is an increasing demand for accurate and transparent data about the environmental impact of air travel. We recently spoke with Kevin to delve deeper into this important topic.
Absolutely. The Global Business Travel Association’s 2024 State of Sustainability report found that sustainability is a top priority for 89% of the business travel industry. Our customers report that their travelers consider flight emissions personally important, taking pride in their organizations’ concrete steps toward environmental action, which positively impacts staff morale and retention.
While travelers care, most are not willing to prioritize sustainability considerations when these go against competing interests such as corporate policy, price (which is often synonymous with policy), and convenience. This important context provides us with clues as to how to influence travelers. Increasing the availability of low-carbon travel options should be a priority across business routes, so sustainability does not compete against fundamental travel needs. Nudges can be effective, but to drive change, sustainability must be baked more rapidly into travel policy and brought to life in booking tools.
A primary way to incorporate sustainability into travel policies without impacting the traveler experience is to purchase sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). SAF can reduce carbon emissions from flying by ~80%. In 2025 SAF is expected to account for 0.7% of global jet fuel production, double the 2024 production capacity. Companies can help to scale the SAF industry by purchasing SAF for their travel using a book-and-claim system, which allows the customer to claim the environmental benefits of the purchased SAF, even if SAF is not available at their departure airport, helping to decarbonize aviation. IATA is supporting the industry progress on SAF via the CADO SAF Registry and the SAF Matchmaker, while CO2 Connect will help measure the impact through emissions reduction.
AMEX GBT supports the move to SAF via various initiatives including supporting the World Economic Forum Clean Skies for Tomorrow and First Movers Coalition initiatives, non-profit organizations such as the Sustainable Aviation Buyer’s Alliance (SABA), government advocacy groups such as the SAF coalition in the United States, and investments in SAF through the United Ventures Sustainable Flight Fund and the Avelia platform.
Typically, no. Travelers are busy and focused on their day job. They should be able to trust the organizations serving them emissions data and associated tools. This is another reason data consistency, transparency, and assurance are so important. We need to earn the trust of travelers and work to keep it.
We view this assurance as an exciting milestone for IATA CO2 Connect. It speaks directly to one of our clients’ biggest needs: trusted, credible data. We know this is important for the point-of-sale experience, but we are increasingly seeing this need from clients who use our emissions reporting. Corporates use this data to design net-zero strategies, monitor progress, and complete mandatory or voluntary reporting. Emissions data must meet a high standard if we expect broad uptake and we are confident this will build further momentum behind IATA CO2 Connect.
We are seeing a shift of interest from distance-based to fuel burn-based carbon calculations from our clients, particularly in online booking tools. Our clients want to put the most granular, precise emissions data in front of their travelers as possible. This way, decision tools that are based on CO2 emissions (like flags, sort, and filters) are more effective at raising lower-emitting choices to the traveler’s attention. When looking for CO2 emissions data that would satisfy this need, IATA CO2 Connect stood out. Its basis in actual airline data for fuel burn and belly cargo weight, aircraft-specific data, and its time-based approach set it apart from other fuel burn-based methods.
Transparency leads to meaningful action. Without emissions transparency, there are limited practical ways for travelers to select a lower-impact flight at point of sale. However, providing carbon emissions data is not enough. We’ve learned this data must be translated into something intuitive to travelers—visual cues, relatable context, and eliminating extra steps are key.
Companies and travelers can be bombarded with conflicting emissions data, depending on the provider. Aligning with the aviation industry on IATA CO2 Connect helps address this disconnect.
