[SUSTA I NAB I L I TY If you’ve made it through Covid-19 things are already looking up. But there’s a new challenge on the horizon and it’s here to stay. You’ve survived Covid, lost staff, seen your long-term supplier list shrink, and are being challenged with high flight costs and venue availability. Dealing with all that is hard enough. And now, good planner, you have another challenge on your hands. Since the world’s emergence from the global pandemic earlier this year, sustainability is clearly a topic that is on everyone’s lips. Not a day goes by that there isn’t a report of some kind on the environmental impact humans are having on the planet. The mining, manufacturing, energy and agricultural sectors have borne most of the criticisms over the past decade or so. And now it’s the travel sector’s turn. The simple fact is if you don’t start thinking about the environmental impact of getting your clients from Point A to Point B and reducing their impact wherever they are, you could be out of here faster than a positive PCR test. Forget the fact that Australia and New Zealand combined produce in real terms just over one per cent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. Our job – your role – is to work on reducing what is possible within your sphere of influence. Your clients, if they’re not already, will soon be demanding it. Speaking at the Flight Centre Corporate Illuminate conference in Sydney recently, Ernst & Young partner in EY’s climate change and sustainability services team, Adam Carrel, said whether those working in the travel industry wanted to hear it or not, their industry was going to be the next in line forced to tackle sustainability. “The travel industry finds itself on a really difficult list,” he said. “This is a list of global sectors that have to change. You’ve just got back onto your feet and the last thing you want to think about is another existential crisis.” He warned the industry not to shy away from the topic and avert attention to the strengths of the travel sector as a whole by focusing on benefits, including the positive economic contribution travel makes to economies. Mining attempted that, he said, Sustainability the next great challenge and it didn’t work. At another recent conference, this one hosted virtually and organised by the Global Business Travel Association, which boasts 28,000 members, the audience heard that the corporate world is already expecting conversations around sustainability and travel. Hong Kong-based Ernst & Young meetings and events leader and global corporate card leader, Nicola Winchester, told attendees that from her organisation’s perspective there was a moral issue around climate change that EY could not stand back and ignore. “We take a very serious approach to this, starting our journey back in 2020 when our chairman and CEO announced we were going to be carbon negative by 2021 – and we were – but then we boldly stated that we would be net zero by 2025. There isn’t an option for us to fail in that.” What this means is that conversations with event and travel suppliers will no longer be just about what centerpieces a gala dinner table will have or what colour the chair covers will be. There may be those of course By Brad Foster The Arinex group participated in coral planting at Kokomo in Fiji [34] meeting newz [nov dec] 2022
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