The German Business Travel Association (VDR) has secured government funding to develop an end-to-end programme to help companies reduce carbon emissions related to travel, the association recently announced.

The programme will be piloted in early 2023 to help Germany’s business travel sector reduce its CO2 footprint by digitising processes for booking and managing sustainable travel.

VDR says that the sector is currently behind government-mandated goals to reduce carbon emissions. This is because implementing a sustainable travel policy is a "complex" and "silo-like" process.

With a focus on small to medium-sized companies, the pilot programme will look to “reduce complexity” and “facilitate implementation” by providing travellers, travel managers and stakeholders with a “holistic representation” of the sustainable travel booking process.

This will include intelligent booking, sustainable purchasing and transparent billing and compensation of CO2 emissions, as well as stakeholder communication, according to the association.

VDR said it hopes the pilot will “motivate companies and market participants to implement sustainability internally and consistently in the short term”.

“The result will be a ‘blueprint’ for consistent, sustainable Travel Management as a Service (TMaaS) combined with a digitisation of the entire process,” the association said in a statement.

The pilot will be implemented in cooperation with consultancy Intelligent Business Concepts and supported by the Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate Protection as part of its LIFT Klima funding scheme for sustainable innovation in the travel and tourism sector.

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Source: BTN Europe