FEATURE | Going green: the optimist’s view

Successive studies seem to indicate that for many companies in the recession, environmental ideals have slipped down the agenda. But Leilani Latimer, Sabre Holdings' director for sustainability initiatives, tells ABTN she is still optimistic that more corporates will adopt green measures 

There cannot have been much comfort in recent surveys for those committed to sustainability. Most seem to find that the recession has pushed green issues down the agenda with the Barclaycard Commercial Business Travel Survey earlier this month revealing that just 1% of its respondents saying they would not travel less because of environmental considerations.

This is likely to have left many greens with a sense of despair that the message will never get across. But not Leilani Latimer, Sabre's director for sustainability initiatives. She is still brimming with optimism that the green arguments will win through.

Leilani Latimer

Speaking to ABTN at the National Business Travel Association (NBTA) convention in San Diego, she said: "I would say absolutely that companies are taking notice of environmental issues." Companies which instigated environmental programmes two or three years ago, she said, are now starting to analyse their findings and see the benefits of their actions.

 The ROI in the environment can also come round quickly. Ms Latimer cites the example of her own company's new building in Southlake, Texas. When Sabre decided on a "green" building, it did cost more but the extra cost was paid off in 18 months through savings on energy bills.

"The savings we made in energy and water paid back very quickly the extra cost. Benefits like this are not advertised enough," she said.

But shouting the quick returns on environmental programmes is just one of the areas where Ms Latimer, who has worked for Sabre in North America and Europe for 19 years, believes those committed to the cause can do better.

The first is the attitude of companies to their suppliers. "It is a world of increasing focus on transparency. Companies want to know what their suppliers are doing. Is their money going to a responsible company?" she said.

"I think the biggest change that has to happen is with travel procurement." The buyers need to take more notice of how green the suppliers are. Her grounds for optimism here is that in the States more than 3,000 companies have made a public commitment to cut carbon emissions which would be hard to go back on. This is not a large number but it is a start.

But she readily admits that it can be hard for travel buyers to get data to help them decide, for example, which hotel to use.

A second area for her unease is the emphasis on carbon footprints and cutting carbon emissions. There needs to be a balance in which other factors, like reducing the use of energy and water, also come into the sustainability equation.

She points out that while rail is accepted as a more carbon efficient way to travel than many airlines, it also takes a lot of energy to build and run a train service. "Taking a broader vision, it is about much more than just carbon.

"These are the changes we have to make. But how do you get them (companies) to do it. It differs from company to company. From our perspective, it is about life balance."

And it is from here that Ms Latimer hits out at those who might be her natural allies, the Greens. If a company increases its business, including travel trips, it is not necessarily an extra burden on the environment.

If someone grows his or her company, the measure is not the increase in carbon emissions, but the level of carbon emissions per unit. It is not good if a business is both growing and increasing its emissions per unit of its growth. What is good is that a business grows but also msoanages to reduce emissions per unit of growth.

"The deep green side needs to get comfortable with this. You do not have to adopt green policies purely through the goodness of your heart," she said. "You have to make a business case where to make it work, you have to bring deep green and non-green together but only if it is for firm reasons."

Sabre Holding's headquarters in Southlake, Texas

But what is undermining Ms Latimer's case is, as she is well aware, the lack of an industry agreed standard for measuring carbon, water and energy cuts. If there were such a measure which took into account all three, it would be a far more accurate way of assessing a company's or an activity's greenness.

"If I grow my travel business, I am a bad guy. But if we changed the measures, it would be a more efficient way of measuring each trip," she said.

The knock from the lack of an agreed measure is that there is also no standard way to analyse what data there is. And while it is relatively straightforward to measure a journey by car or rail, a stay in a hotel is far more difficult involving many different factors, from use of energy to waste control. There are also many ways to calculate aviation emissions, from the type of plane to the number of people aboard.

Ms Latimer whose job entails not only setting out her company's strategic direction but also developing a platform the industry to advocate better environmental policies, is optimistic enough to believe that a standard form of measurement could be available in the next three years which she said would be an important step forward.

But her grounds for optimism do not stop there. Whereas many in the industry receive just the broad brush strokes of often pessimistic surveys, Ms Latimer sees the situation from much closer in. "I read about innovations each day. People are coming up with the most commonsense solutions and you think ‘Why did we not think of that three years ago?'

"So that is why I am optimistic. Others in the industry have not been able to solve problems themselves as we cannot do it as single people or on our own. But we can begin discussions with partners and competitors.

 "We are not competing against each other about a product but it is about keeping making the industry better in the long term. And I am optimistic that we can work together."

www.sabre.com