Featured Story

Reduce Your Event’s Carbon Footprint

BCD Travel announces the industry’s first end-to-end sustainability tool for business travel

BCD Travel’s latest innovation enables customers to set sustainability goals and carbon targets, drive traveler behavior change, apply carbon tax or allocate carbon emissions reduction and removal project costs at the point of sale, and report on emissions and progress. BCD’s sustainability offering will be available and relevant to all clients, regardless of their progress in sustainable business travel.

For clients that desire sustainability strategy and change management support as well as more sophisticated analytics tools, BCD’s consulting division, Advito and their sustainability experts are there to help.

“BCD Travel prioritizes sustainability. Yet, it has been challenging for our customers to make their travel programs more sustainable,” said April Bridgeman, senior vice president at BCD Travel and managing director at Advito. “Until now, our clients have had to spend significant time and energy identifying, selecting and deploying a range of sustainability providers that aren’t easy to integrate together or into their programs. Along with SQUAKE and Advito, we decided to help by bringing what was once a fragmented set of features and suppliers together to simplify the process. And, we added some new features along the way.”

How it works

BCD partnered with SQUAKE, a leading climate-tech company, to streamline carbon emission related action across the various tools and touchpoints in the travel industry. This allows corporate travel programs to centrally set targets, decide upon sustainability policies to achieve them, and distribute these across online and offline booking channels for each employee.

The technology provider established tooling to provide active nudging and steering tools within BCD agent frontends and online booking tools (OBTs). The tool encourages travelers to travel less and travel better. In addition to making travelers aware of air, train, hotel and ground transportation emissions using one of multiple calculation methodologies, the tool displays the carbon cost of each trip.

While CO2 emissions consumption of different travel options have been visible to travelers in OBTs for some time, it’s been difficult to use the same methodology across the point of sale, itineraries and invoices, and reporting. That challenge is solved by this offering.

For companies that have decided to allocate an actual carbon tax or require a traveler to invest in a carbon reduction project or sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) for each trip, BCD now has automated solutions. The offering includes both point of sale and aggregated fee allocation options including SAF procurement or CO2 compensation certificates.

In addition to driving traveler behavior change, BCD and SQUAKE will provide carbon budgeting, forecasting and reporting tools to help clients set and manage carbon targets. This is key to comply with regulatory reporting requirements like the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD).

“Our goal is to embed carbon emission related action into the core processes and reduce the execution complexity of sustainability policies by our industry leading technology,” said Philipp von Lamezan, CEO of SQUAKE. “SQUAKE is proud to partner with BCD Travel, a reputable company that shares our mindset to bring sustainability to the forefront and solve carbon emissions challenges for more customers, ensuring a brighter future.”

Benefits

The business travel industry’s first comprehensive and fully integrated TMC sustainability offering provides complete transparency at point of sale whether the booking is online or through a travel consultant. Travelers will have a consistent experience and sustainability guidance at every step of their journey. Through robust data and behavior changes, companies can reduce emissions related to business travel.

BCD’s sustainability offering aids compliance with CSRD which requires setting and monitoring progress against targets as well as basic CO2 reporting. Travel managers can set the parameters for their policy and track and report their progress.

BCD’s sustainability solution is currently being piloted with Siemens and will be available to customers in the first quarter of 2025.

Any thoughts, opinions, or news? Please share them with me at vince@meetingsevents.com.

Photo by Vishnu Prasad on Unsplash

Lake of the Torches Resort Casino

Introducing Lac du Flambeau Casino Resort: The perfect venue for unforgettable meetings and events! Conveniently located amidst the breathtaking beauty of Northern Wisconsin, our resort offers a harmonious blend of modern amenities and natural surroundings. The conference center is situated on the shores of Lake Pokegama nestled in Wisconsin’s Northwoods, providing a classic Northern retreat feel that reflects its Ojibwe culture and heritage. The casino has slot machines and table games, dining in the Eagle’s Nest Restaurant and Woody’s Bar & Grill, and 101 well-appointed rooms. The 8,500 square-foot Convention Center with the Hall of Nations offers an outstanding venue for entertainment, receptions, trade shows, meetings, presentations, and seminars. The Convention Center can accommodate up to 800 people. Call 1-800-25-TORCH for more information.

The Edgewater Hotel

The Edgewater Hotel in Madison, Wisconsin is an ideal location for hosting meetings and events. The hotel is located in the heart of Madison, next door to the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and within a short walking distance of the Capitol Square and downtown. The hotel has over 14,000 square feet of indoor space including seven breakout rooms, multiple ballrooms, and four special event spaces that can be configured to support your meeting or event. The Grand Ballroom and Terraces, The Madison Room, The Mendota Ballroom, The Red Crown Club, and The Sky Bar are some of the venues available for hosting events. The hotel offers first-class meeting and banquet facilities with the latest A/V equipment and is staffed with in-house A/V technicians. Contact their sales team at sales@theedgewater.com to start planning your event today.