Sabre partners with Google to reduce environmental impact of business travel 

Sabre Corporation 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 optimize 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, 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. For instance, 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 at  Google. “Our long-term collaborative efforts and Sabre’s granular dataset made them the obvious  choice for this pilot program.”

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. Notably, Sabre’s  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*, they are responsible for  a much higher proportion of emissions – in Europe, for example, they account for approximately  30 percent. ** 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.