Launching EcoCheck with Thrust Carbon

Editor’s note: This guest post is from Mark Corbett, founder and director at Thrust Carbon, Deem’s partner in creating our sustainability technology feature in Etta called EcoCheck. At Deem, we’re answering the question, “what does sustainability mean in technology?” by offering contextual data and scores to help business travelers understand how each part of their trip impacts the environment. Our goal is to influence travelers to make effortless decisions that lessen their carbon emissions from travel.

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Huddled over coffee and notepads on a low-cost flight from London to Frankfurt in mid-2019, Kit Brennan and I were intensely discussing a perplexing problem: Why do fewer than 1% of flyers offset their travel?

If you can do it for as little as $1 for many short haul flights, what is stopping people? Especially when the world is clearly facing an overwhelming crisis in climate change and humanity is finally coming to terms with this crisis.

After collaborating with the International Air Transport Association (IATA) innovation team, Kit and I re-emerged with the beginnings of a business plan that would have the potential to transform travel. And as the founders of newly created Thrust Carbon, we were ready to put it into action.

Sustainability in technology

Early on, we were confronted by the reality of our desire to improve the offsetting purchasing process and its adoption across travel: It exploded into a cacophony of inaccessible data, challenging science, and questions asking how we could mobilize an entire industry to reduce emissions and tackle the climate crisis head on. 

Then the realization hit us: Without good data, travelers couldn’t make good decisions in the first place. After all, you wouldn’t book flights without knowing their fares. We quickly realized that responsible travel hinges on properly understanding the environmental cost just as we do the financial. 

But at the same time, we wanted to engage and work with the travel industry, not against it. Total de-carbonisation for aircraft is still some years (or decades) away, and in the meantime people will still need to travel. As our team grew, bringing in Glenn Thorsen to lead partnerships, the concept of lowest logical emissions was conceived. And Deem and Thrust Carbon are now making this technology for sustainability a reality.

Advances in sustainability technology

After just three years, despite challenges from the pandemic, Thrust Carbon’s data is permeating the business travel industry and enabling clients to ensure best-in-class data across their tools. Our launch inside Etta is one of our most groundbreaking developments to date.

“Deem was a very early supporter of both our vision and our quest to improve sustainability data for the whole industry,” says Kit. “We are incredibly excited for launch day and to share our emissions data with all Etta travelers. With better measurement, we can better manage our emissions and ultimately drive towards net-zero [emissions]. 

“We cannot move quickly enough to fight the climate crisis. Deem’s entire team has a forward-thinking attitude, and its speed of implementation has been an inspiration to us as we continue to evolve our solutions. Together, we really can ensure our actions don’t have to cost the earth.”

How can we make travel more sustainable?

As we’ve said, it’s vital to provide travelers with the data they need to make more informed choices during necessary business trips. Travelers using the Etta platform will see information at each step of their booking process and be able to click deeper if they want more detail.

For example, as shown in the image below, travelers will see the EcoCheck leaf icon in flight search results pages highlighting the average carbon emissions for each flight. Clicking deeper into a flight result brings up additional information, including a way to understand what the carbon emissions mean for the environment. There are also brief explanations of why the flight has higher or lower emissions and how Thrust Carbon estimates these results.

Left-side image: Flight search results page showing leaf icon and higher-lower-average carbon emissions. Right-side image: Flight details screen showing more exact amount of CO2 emissions, what is typical for this route, and the percentage higher-lower. Contextual info is also shown as the amount of emissions equal to the carbon captured by the equivalent number of tree seedlings.

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‍Hotel searches also provide sustainability data. Hotel search pages show an indication of a hotel’s status as more or less sustainable and if it has an independently verified sustainability certification, as in the left side screen in the image below. The center screen shows a hotel details page with a sustainability score for the property—the higher, the better! (Also, notice Deem’s award-winning Travel SafetyCheck feature just below EcoCheck. If you’ve used that feature, you know how easy it is to get the details you need right in the travel booking process.) And then in the right-hand side of the image below, more information is available with one more click about eco certifications for the property and how the scoring is determined.

Left-side screen: Hotel search pages show an indication of a hotel’s status as more or less sustainable and if it has an independently verified sustainability certification; Center screen: hotel details page with a sustainability score for the property; Right-side screen: Eco certifications for the property and how the scoring is determined.

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We also offer estimated carbon emissions data for car rentals, based on car class and a plethora of other data points. As shown in the image below, with just a few clicks, travelers are able to find a bit more detailed information on the selected vehicle and contextual information on the amount of carbon emissions released, so travelers can get a clear understanding of how the carbon emissions from their car rental will impact the environment.

More detailed information on the selected vehicle and contextual information on the amount of carbon emissions released.

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As I am sure many of you reading this can relate, 2019 feels like a century ago. Sometimes looking back, the whole (growing!) Thrust Carbon team has to pinch themselves. They are driving transformational change in an industry that was crippled by Covid-19 and is still in the midst of rebounding. 

Winning an IATA hackathon in Frankfurt 2019, where we built our very first prototype, was the first step in a very long journey. Deem launching EcoCheck in Etta which shows carbon emissions at point of search, is similarly the first incredible step in what will be a long but rewarding battle in tackling the climate crisis. We’re doing that hand-in-hand with Deem and each and every one of you.

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Check out our short product page to find out more about Etta with EcoCheck.

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The business travel community has been building sustainability measures into travel programs at an increasing rate in recent years.

Consumer demand, especially among younger travelers, and heightened awareness about global warming are driving companies to seek more sustainable options.

Yet more needs to be done, and faster, with recent research revealing that 85% of global companies have not set “ambitious targets” on reducing corporate travel-related emissions, according to Transport & Environment.

The Europe-based campaign group launched its Travel Smart Ranking last year to rate more than 300 companies on their “commitment to reduce corporate travel and report air travel emissions” and concluded most companies aren’t doing much on business flying.

But Kit Aspen, founder and director at Thrust Carbon, a green tech startup that calculates emissions and develops carbon offset plans, said sustainability is becoming a “core pillar of travel programs” and that the climate crisis is waking up consumers.

“The most recent [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] report, which reviews 16,000 academic journal articles for and against climate change, said that without a doubt climate change is man-made," he said. "We’re at 1.1 degree [Celsius] global warming, everything gets pretty catastrophic at 1.5 degrees, but that’s the target and we’re on track for well over two degrees so it’s scary.”

The company, which has partnerships with large and small travel management companies as well as directly with corporate customers, has just extended its partnership with CWT and is now providing the travel management company with a carbon calculator for meetings and events.

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CWT said sustainability now features in some shape or form on 98% of its request for proposal documents for meetings and events. It has grown in importance over the past few years, said Charlie Sullivan, vice president of product management at CWT.

“It’s painfully apparent right now that we’re in a climate crisis,” he said.

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On the business travel side, Sullivan said customers are asking for more robust carbon calculation capabilities than they currently have, while those more advanced in sustainability want information on calculating carbon integrated at the point of sale.

For the meetings and events unit, meanwhile, customer needs range from reports on the carbon footprint after the event to help picking and organizing event locations to minimize carbon footprints.

The meetings and events carbon calculator brings together data on event carbon emissions and waste and highlights areas where a more sustainable option is possible, including destination, transportation, accommodation and food and beverage.

Kevin Harrison, managing director of Good Travel Management, which also works with Thrust Carbon, has also noted greater interest and heightened awareness from businesses and said sustainability is now seen as a “priority.”

He also sees an opportunity for business travel agents to “guide, educate and encourage best practice” on sustainability, though he highlighted the lack of a benchmark to measure against as a challenge.

Mixed methodologies

CWT’s Sullivan said that while he wants to see “robust and unbiased” calculation methodologies based on science, he’s more concerned about consistency across the traveler booking process, from point of sale to the itinerary to the trip reporting element.

“Would it be great if there was one [calculation methodology]?" he asked. "It would make my life simpler, but I’m just happy people are measuring. We’re getting to that calculate-and-reduce element of it.”

And multiple methodologies likely will persist, said Aspen, as legislation from regulators in both Europe and the United States will require companies to have carbon accounting rules in place but have not stipulated a particular methodology.

Thrust Carbon, a PhocusWire Hot 25 Startup in 2022, has recently inked partnerships with other TMCs including TripStax. The TripStax partnership sees a carbon emission calculation applied to trips it books.

Aspen said Thrust Carbon's technology and data are available to TMCs large and small, and deals with booking providers make it easier for smaller companies to act on sustainability. He also said TMCs should sort out carbon reporting as a first step with some mid- and back-office systems already providing emissions data.

Following that, he said providing simple guidance for corporate customers on how to make travel programs more sustainable is another simple step.

Meanwhile, Harrison from Good Travel Management, said initiatives such as carbon budgets within companies and traveler incentives could also help boost sustainability and are likely to be used more widely in the industry.

Carbon offsetting, which is often used as a box-ticking exercise by companies, will not be enough, Harrison said, because it does not address traveler behavior.

“There has to be a combined strategy of traveling as sustainably as possible and working with the right offsetting partners,” he said.

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