How to Build a Sustainable Business Policy with SAP Concur Solutions

Businesses of all sizes must be ready to prove they are sustainable, not just in name but in real, provable actions. Becoming a business committed to corporate social responsibility means taking positive action and creating a clear, environmental policy to eliminate, reduce or offset your business carbon footprint.

Why is sustainability important in business? Firstly, because employees and customers expect it and will go elsewhere if you don’t have a plan and prove that you are sticking to it. 

Secondly, and crucially, legislation related to sustainability is shifting all the time. 

For example, many countries around the world have committed to becoming net zero by 2050, as demonstrated in the Paris agreement. Since April 2019, some organisations must report on their global energy use and large businesses must disclose their UK annual energy use and greenhouse emissions. This begs the question: What else could be written into legislation over the next five years?

It's imperative for businesses of all sizes to drive sustainability and plan how to reduce carbon footprint by writing a clear environmental policy. 

To get started, check out these government guidelines to see how you’re doing. If you’re still in any doubt that there’s a need to act, read this guide to see how lowering carbon emissions can help your business grow. 

Ready? We’ve put together an action plan to make it easier to stay ahead so you’re not left playing catch up and potentially facing fines, employee dissatisfaction or reputational damage.

Actionable Tips for Writing an Effective Environmental Policy

What environmental concerns are relevant to your business?

There’s not a one size fits all checklist for sustainability and your policy should be based on the results of an initial assessment of what’s relevant to your business. From here you can start to set benchmarks and goals that you can shape into your finished – but always evolving – environmental policy.

 

5 Ways to Build Sustainability into your Travel Program

Changing established processes and transforming business travel for sustainability isn’t easy, but our five tips should help to get you on the right path:  

Find out more

What do employees want and expect from you?

80 percent of business travellers are more inclined to work for an organisation with a sustainability policy. An important step in making sustainability a reality and ensuring you adhere to legislation is involving them in the conversation from day one.

This could include:

• education and training
• regular employee feedback
• awareness campaigns
• incentives for change
• the appointment of sustainable travel ambassadors

What is your baseline for emissions and what objectives can you set?

Set a benchmark for measuring your pollution levels, use of biodegradable materials or the impact of your business travel and set realistic objectives to avoid, reduce and compensate for emissions. An important step is monitoring progress against targets and objectives on a regular basis.

How can you ensure you make maximum use of environmentally friendly transport?

This means setting targets for the modes of transport your staff use, the miles they clock up on the road, the decisions travellers make about which mode of transport to opt for and even giving them the option not to fly at all when online meetings will suffice. 

Have we set out sustainability expectations for suppliers, customers and partners?

Your success in sustainability is only as strong as the people you associate with. The expectations that your business has in relation to external parties such as suppliers and contractors, as well as clients and partners, must be built into any policy. 

How Can You Implement and Enforce Your Policies with SAP Concur Solutions? 

SAP Concur solutions puts the power to implement your environmental policy firmly in your hands. By using intelligent and emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, compliance with your organisations’ policies, and by extension, adherence to the organisation’s sustainability goals, is made easier.

Here are just some of the ways you can make your environmental policy a reality with SAP Concur solutions.

Embed guidance into your booking experience

Educating employees becomes easy with Concur Travel, as it gives you complete control over the type of journeys employees choose and their methods of transport, ensuring the most carbon-emission efficient choice is always the easiest option. 

Prevent unnecessary carbon emissions before it’s too late

Calculate the carbon footprint for a particular journey at the point of booking. You can do this via a choice of two models – DEFRA and CE – while also supporting additional models used by specific Travel Management Companies.

Analyse where improvements can be made

Concur Travel captures intended and actual travel data, enabling you to analyse your business travel data to see all carbon emissions, and discover variances between the booked itinerary and the actual travel. 

The ability to report accurately on mileage

Using Google Maps, you can report accurately on business travellers’ mileage, basing your findings on engine size, or whether the vehicle is company or personal. You can also calculate your employees’ business mileage for P11d reporting.

Track and present the sustainability of third-party bookings

Travel managers have the flexibility to choose how integrated travel partners are presented and communicated to travellers, in order to better reflect the organisation’s travel policies and prevent out-of-policy spending. 

End-to-End Spend Management for Sustainability

Whilst Concur Travel addresses many of the challenges facing businesses as they seek to become more sustainable, sustainability is not just about corporate travel.

Fortunately, by using a central spend management platform and integrating Concur Expense and Concur Invoice, your business will reduce the use of paper as receipts and invoices can be captured and digitalised through the platform, further extending your sustainability and helping you reach whatever goals you set – and whatever legislation demands – much sooner.

Want to find out how sustainable your business is when it comes to travel? Take our quiz and discover where you need to make necessary changes to your policies.

For more inspiration on how to drive sustainability throughout your business, check out sustainability resources.