Empowering change

Last November, Amsterdam-based design and consulting firm Arcadis committed to achieving net zero across its value chain by 2035. The company also set an ambitious goal to reduce overall business travel emissions by 35 per cent (against a 2019 baseline) by 2025, and set a specific air emissions reduction target of 50 per cent by 2025.

According to its 2023 annual report, released in March, business travel emissions (including air, private vehicles, short-term hired vehicles, public transport and taxis) have already decreased by 30 per cent, while air emissions are down 26 per cent against the 2019 baseline.

To ensure it remains on track, Arcadis recently began deploying quarterly CO2 footprint reports to its 25,000 travellers globally. The quarterly emails detail travel-related carbon emissions for the previous three months and provide personalised suggestions for less carbon intensive options for future trips, such as a rail alternative for a specific route or a hotel in a recently visited destination with a lower carbon impact, for example.

 “Our key focus [here] is to educate our people to focus on the micro changes,” explains Arcadis global sustainability manager for travel, Jill Smit. “[We wanted to create] a platform where people can engage with their own carbon footprint.”

Critical to this engagement effort was the need to make CO2 emissions data more tangible and relatable to travellers. Working with travel sustainability intelligence specialist Thrust Carbon, Arcadis identified CO2 equivalents that attributed a value to carbon that was meaningful to employees. For example, for Arcadis travellers working in construction, quarterly reports compare CO2 emissions to the impact of building a three- or four-bedroom house.

“We all know what $100 or €100 gives you, but when it comes to carbon, it’s a foreign currency that people are not aware of… we want to make people aware of the actual impact of their travels,” adds Smit.

On a strategic level, Arcadis is looking to showcase how incremental adjustments – or “micro changes” – adopted by 100 per cent of travellers can contribute to substantial reductions in CO2 emissions without impacting client relationships or collaboration.

To steer travellers in the right direction, the company has built pop-up messaging into its booking tool to ‘nudge’ travellers towards more sustainable options in accordance with a new policy that stipulates any journey of less than 700 kilometres, where options are available, should be made via rail.

“This is very much an awareness campaign,” says Arcadis’ global travel director, Nikki Parsons, so rail travel is “encouraged” rather than strictly enforced. To sweeten the deal, first class travel is permitted for rail journeys longer than four hours.

Additionally, electric vehicles are prioritised in search results within the company’s booking tool in most markets, while in markets where such filters aren’t available, Parsons says the travel team is “showing people how they can find EVs to make sure everyone is clear”.

On top of this, Arcadis has also introduced a ‘virtual-first’ travel policy and asks travellers to apply a “go, no-go” paradigm to in-person meetings and business travel. Parsons says her team is working on a diagnostic tool that, once implemented, will allow travellers to ‘quantify’ the potential ROI of a business trip with a traffic light system in order to make more informed travel decisions.