Corporations have higher CSR standards for themselves than for their preferred partners

As corporate social responsibility (CSR) increasingly becomes part of mainstream business practice, companies are revising not only their own practices but looking to their preferred suppliers to reinforce important CSR goals. According to the 175 corporate travel managers AirPlus surveyed in November about the CSR initiatives at their own companies and throughout their supply chain, this is especially true in the area of environmental standards.

Unlike other CSR categories, the green initiatives of suppliers can have a direct impact on a company’s own goals for reducing the environmental impact of business travel. To that end, the percent of travel manager respondents who expect green initiatives of their preferred suppliers was 42 percent – significantly higher than any of the other categories in the survey. Implemented at 55 percent of the travel managers’ companies, those percentages also represent less of a gap between what corporations do themselves and what they expect from their preferred suppliers than in any other category in the survey.

Despite relatively high expectations of supplier CSR initiatives, few companies currently include CSR criteria in their travel supplier RFPs, ranging from a low of 10 percent who include it in payment RFPs to a high of 15 percent who include it in hotel RFPs.  Slightly more plan to include such initiatives in their RFPs in the coming year, with car taking the lead at 19 percent, then hotel at 16 percent, air at 14 percent and payment at 10 percent. However, the majority currently have no plans to include that kind of criteria: 63 percent of corporate travel managers say they have no plans to include CSR criteria in their payment RFPs, followed by 62 percent for air and 57 percent for both hotel and car.

The lackluster numbers are not surprising given that while the majority of respondents do say they consider CSR and green initiatives when making their final decisions, for most respondents, this is not a consideration that’s key to final decision-making process. Only 2 percent said such initiatives were of “critical” importance in the preferred supplier decision-making process. Another 15 percent said such information was “important” to the process, while the highest number – 43 percent – said it was “considered.” The remaining 40 percent said it was either “not very important” or “never considered.”

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AirPlus The Wire December 2011

Additional Resources:

New Business Travel Emissions Reporting Standards Expected Next Month

Despite Rising Emissions, Bloomberg LP Plans No Travel Cuts