FCM Travel management company and South Pole, a leading expert in global climate action and project development, have partnered to set up a new global carbon offsetting programme. Once the Covid-19 restrictions ease, the company will also offset all its staff’s travel for business. This move will be backdated to 2019.
Through the South Pole partnership, FCM will be able to support multinational clients in the introduction of a net-zero solution to naturalize the carbon impact of their business travel. The partnership will play a key role in helping them meet the client’s sustainability goals, by enabling them to offset against global flights, hotel accommodation, rail bookings, car rental, and other business travel components.
FCM can compute, record and provide monthly or quarterly reports of CO2 emissions globally per item for each of its clients. Clients can then aim to offset their total carbon footprint by choosing from specific climate action projects.
Together, FCM and South Pole have drafted a list of 12 global standard sustainability projects worldwide, consisting of forestry conservation, restoration and community energy and water programmes.
A few of the projects include Access to Clean Water for Better Health in Cambodia; Solar Power for a Cleaner Energy Future in India; Kariba Forest Protection in Zimbabwe; and Uretim Osmaniye Wind Farm in Turkey. The price of offsetting for each project ranges from US$3.70 to US$15 per tCO2e. Clients have the option to select up to four projects depending on their budget, geographic area and preferred impact categories.
The development of FCM’s new proprietary platform technology will also stand to gain from the partnership. The technology platform puts sustainability at the heart of the booking process, helping employees make better decisions regarding their carbon footprint while helping organizations meet their global sustainability goals.
The sustainability dashboard on FCM’s platform shows travellers their statistics of travel carbon emission. It gives travel managers details of the total carbon footprint and CO2 savings accomplished each month. FCM plans to include in its platform, a function whereby the sustainability dashboard will also show carbon credits reporting for every individual client and also how emissions translate into offsetting credits and projects.
“We’re making sustainability a core pillar of our customer offering for 2021, putting greater focus on guiding and supporting clients with their objectives, particularly in terms of CO2 reporting and a global net-zero solution that enables them to contribute to positive climate action,” said Marcus Eklund, Global Managing Director.
“Sustainability has moved higher up our customer’s business travel agenda, despite the impact of Covid-19. In fact, after the travel bans of 2020 enabled companies to reduce their carbon footprint from travel significantly many are not only re-emphasising their overall environmental objectives post-Covid, they’re making them an integral part of travel policies and RFPs,” he added.
