Concur Travel is set to enable the integration of carbon budgets from Q3 this year in what could help bring the sustainability initiative into the mainstream.
The new functionality will enable corporates, working in partnership with third parties, to set and deploy carbon budgets in the new iteration of the booking tool, letting travellers see how a proposed trip will impact their organisation or department’s carbon emissions allocation within a defined period.
“We’ve facilitated financial budgets for some time so this development has been a fairly quick win,” Paul Dear, Concur’s regional vice president - supplier services EMEA, told BTN Europe. “We’re the conduit; we’re providing the facility for partners to integrate budgets at the front end.”
Although pre- and post-trip emissions data invariably differs, providing insights and budgets at the point of sale “gives you foresight and influences behaviour. It’s ISO-regulated data so it’s as good as it can be at that point,” Dear noted.
The deployment of carbon budgets in managed travel programme is an increasingly popular lever for corporates pursuing sustainability goals. Dear estimates that 20 to 30 per cent of customers have carbon budgets in operation, with the new functionality “bringing those budgets out of the background and into the booking tool”.
The capability is described on Concur’s roadmap as “injected partner content” that will “enable an external partner to inject content… to enrich the experience and customise it to specific customers' needs”. Dear said the development is likely to herald other new third-party capabilities but declined to comment further.
Thrust Carbon, which already provides emissions data in the new Concur, is understood to be the first organisation to take advantage of the new capability, with “several corporates lined up for the initial rollout, including a mix of Fortune 500s,” according to the company’s founder and CEO Kit Aspen, who reported “strong demand” from existing and prospective clients.
“We absolutely see this as a step towards mainstream adoption. Carbon budgets have been a talking point for years, but the lack of practical tools has held things back,” Aspen added.
“Embedding this capability directly into the booking workflow is a game changer, making it much easier for corporates to set, track, and act on their sustainability goals.”
Asked about the migration of customers to the new Concur, Dear said that “almost everyone” using the Sabre GDS has now moved over to the new Concur, while the migration of Amadeus customers will accelerate when hotel content is added in Q2.
“As that comes out we expect to see people move over,” he added.