Presenting the numbers

With a carbon cap, consolidated data and a new emissions methodology in place, AstraZeneca then needed a means of meaningfully reporting on its air emissions.

That came in the shape of a bespoke ‘CFO Dashboard’ that was built inhouse and tracks the company’s emissions from air travel towards the annual cap it had set, showing both flown and ticketed trips. Access was reserved for the senior executive team and business leaders, with emissions viewable by business unit and down to individual traveller level. It was an instant hit.

“The dashboard helps you see where you are against your target at that moment in time,” Henshaw-Cox explains. “So as a leader you can look at it and see, for example, that you could have two more people take transatlantic trips this year or four people travel in Europe. ‘What should I let my team do?’. We had amazing feedback. Demand for access to it has grown exponentially, with more and more individuals wanting to understand how their next trip will impact their target.”

Guidelines in place

The company also set about establishing three core guidelines that would steer travellers towards lower emissions trips – or dissuade them from travelling at all. These were the key levers used to change behaviour and cut emissions.

Firstly, it wanted employees to avoid taking short trips. Like many companies, AstraZeneca is now advising against one-day trips and, as an alternative, rolling-up multiple meetings in a single, longer trip, thus minimising travel emissions.

Secondly, it asks travellers to take the train where possible – particularly within Europe and Japan – with a directive in some markets to travel by train rather than air when a journey can be completed in under four hours.

Lastly, it asks travellers to ‘fly more sustainably’ by opting to travel on newer, more fuel-efficient aircraft as highlighted in its online booking tool.

With all the pieces of the jigsaw in place, the company embarked upon a comprehensive communications campaign. “The success of it all depended on changing the mindset of how and why we travel,” says Henshaw-Cox. “We wanted to educate employees to make smart and sustainable decisions when booking travel whilst still enabling them to achieve their objectives.”

Spreading the word

Its carefully orchestrated comms plan, dubbed Every Mile Matters, included regular educational sessions with travellers, a new intranet page featuring guidance on reducing business travel, a series of posts from senior business leaders endorsing the campaign, assets such as email signatures that enable travellers to show their commitment to travelling more lightly, and pop-up messaging in its booking tool to steer employees towards airlines with more efficient aircraft and hotels with higher sustainability ratings.

Even though the company was not yet including hotel emissions in its reporting it wanted to encourage a shift in mindset. “When the time comes that we do report accommodation emissions, the behaviour will already be embedded and it will be second nature [to book more sustainable options],” says Henshaw-Cox.

“The travel team was at the core of the campaign, answering travellers’ questions and keeping up the dialogue,” she adds. “We collaborated with internal comms teams around the globe to provide messaging that was timely, relevant and in multiple languages.” The campaign was so successful that it was continued into 2024.

Among other steps, the company also elevated its supplier engagement by hosting workshops and encouraging its high-volume partners to commit to SBTi, EcoVadis and Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) reporting.

“We want to have 90 per cent of travel partners achieve sustainability goals through evidence-based ratings,” says Henshaw-Cox. “Our primary focus is air but we are also working with accommodation and car companies. Airlines have really appreciated our approach and it’s led to some rewarding conversations.”

The company’s RFPs also now include more sustainability questions asking for evidence of suppliers’ CSR policies and carbon reduction initiatives.