Google teams up with Sabre for pilot programme to reduce environmental impact of business travel

Sabre first to apply Travel Impact Model for past emissions

Sabre and Google have joined forces to use the Travel Impact Model (TIM) for the first time in calculating past emissions from business travel.

The joint pilot program involved a team of Google analysts using Sabre’s 2023 business travel data to calculate flight-level corporate travel emissions and recommend strategies for future reductions.

The project's findings will empower Sabre to help set realistic reduction targets and optimise travel efficiency.

“Taking responsibility for our own emissions, striving towards the most accurate methodology and working on innovative ways to reduce emissions alongside traditional methods are areas of focus for us,” said Jessica Matthias, global sustainability director of Sabre.

“We were delighted to work with our partners at Google to extend the TIM to cover past emissions and it is exciting to be the first company to use the TIM for value chain emissions disclosure.

“We hope that this can inform and provide insights that can help other companies reduce their emissions from business travel.”

Google analysts looked at TIM per flight calculations and suggested CO2e reductions based on alternative flight options.

The analysis revealed that focusing on the most polluting routes could yield the most significant impact.

Long-haul flights were identified as a key area for improvement. The TIM identified lower-emitting same-day alternatives for two-thirds of flights, including common routes like Dallas-London and Dallas-Frankfurt, with a potential emission reduction of up to 10%.

“Companies increasingly need to understand and report the impact of their business travel and we are delighted to work with Sabre to pioneer the TIM as a standard for real world corporate travel emissions disclosure,” added Sebnem Erzan, global head of travel sustainability partnerships of Google.

“Our long-term collaborative efforts and Sabre’s granular dataset made them the obvious choice for this pilot programme.”

Business travel represented almost 7% of Sabre's carbon footprint in 2023.

The company can now incorporate these insights into their travel policy to reflect these reduction goals.

Its corporate online booking tool, GetThere, integrated TIM emissions data last year.

This enables corporate travel bookers, including Sabre's own employees, to view accurate carbon estimates for their flights during the booking process.

Sabre intends to explore incorporating this capability into its agency and corporate booking tools so that customers can see more accurate emissions estimates from their past bookings.

While business travellers make up only 12% of airline passengers globally, according to PwC, they are responsible for a much higher proportion of emissions - in Europe, they account for approximately 30 percent as reported by the European Federation for Transport and Environment.

Many companies are focused on reducing travel-related emissions, including in response to regulations like the upcoming Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD).

Scope 3 emissions are often notoriously diverse and challenging to measure accurately and consistently, with existing methodologies for Scope 3 - Category 6 (Business Travel) lacking granularity.

The Travel Impact Model is already used to display emissions estimates on platforms like Sabre, Google Flights, Booking.com, Expedia, Skyscanner, and others within the Travalyst coalition.

Soon, it will be freely available to any company seeking a robust method for measuring and reporting on business travel emissions.

The TIM offers a granular methodology, allowing companies to implement effective travel policies that encourage employees to choose less polluting flights without sacrificing travel needs.