Amex GBT proposes industry-wide collaboration to tackle climate change
American Express Global Business Travel (Amex GBT) brought together more than 250 professionals from the corporate travel industry this morning in Madrid at the Amex GBT Connect event. The event, formerly known as Supplier Day, highlighted the need to seek solutions among all stakeholders in the business travel industry to address climate change.
Jason Geall, Executive VP Global SME for Amex GBT, who once again opened the event with a remote keynote address, provided some insight into the business travel landscape in 2023.
«We are seeing that more and more customers, partners and employees want to be confident that they are working with and for responsible, sustainable and inclusive organizations. Travel and meetings programs can play a key role in enhancing wellness, accessibility and inclusiveness," he said.
After her speech, Nicole Sautter, Global Sustainability Manager for Amex GBT, explained that “currently, global greenhouse gas emissions from aviation account for around 3% of total emissions. The risk is that this figure will rise to 22% by 2050”.
In his view, in the short to medium term, sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) can reduce carbon emissions by 80% over its life cycle, compared with fossil fuels. We are helping to expand the use of SAF hand in hand with our customers and partners through our corporate SAF program," he added.
The content portion of Amex GBT Connect closed with an expert panel in which participants shared their views on the challenges presented by sustainability in the business travel, aviation and corporate events market.
Luis Dupuy de Lôme, VP Business Development Global SME for Amex GBT, the roundtable host, noted that “business travel is very necessary, both in commercial activity and in the creation of company culture and the challenge is to make this compatible with sustainability”.
As the speakers stated, the SAF is positioned as the most sustainable solution in the short and medium term, although it is necessary to reduce production costs and, for this, it requires large-scale development.
Also, carbon emissions in aviation are also relevant to the sustainable agenda of corporate events, where, in addition, “we find additional opportunities that also contribute to this casuística”.