More Companies Weighing Environmental Cost of Travel

When a jet flies round-trip from Los Angeles to New York, it leaves behind an estimated 1,600 pounds of carbon dioxide in the skies -- and that's per passenger.

And for business travelers, the numbers add up.

Consider electronics giant Hewlett-Packard Co. It figures its business travel activities generated an estimated 279,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions in 2005.

Carbon dioxide is the nation's most common type of greenhouse gas, and transportation is the largest contributor, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Greenhouse gases are considered a major contributor to global warming.

Increasingly, corporations are finding that their bottom lines can be helped by efforts to reduce their business' effect on the environment. And it's not just about recycling and cutting electricity usage.

Business travel is getting a once-over for its effect on the environment, and corporations are taking action, with some companies cutting back on travel and hotels changing sheets and towels only occasionally during a guest's stay.

"It's a grass-roots movement," said Jack Riepe, spokesman for the Assn. of Corporate Travel Executives.

The nonprofit group with more than 2,500 members worldwide is seeing a bottom-up growth in interest in the subject, Riepe said. It sponsored a seminar on environmentally responsible purchasing at its conference last month in Atlanta.

The primary focus for many companies is the amount of carbon dioxide their travelers generate.

For example, it was London-based Carbon Neutral Co. that made the estimate of what the round trip between Los Angeles and New York cost environmentally. The firm has a website on which one can calculate a company's production of carbon dioxide.

Just being aware that business travel has an effect on the environment is a start, said Jim Peacock, spokesman for Carbon Neutral. The for-profit firm advises companies on strategies for reducing their carbon emissions.

When that is not feasible, it helps find projects that can offset those emissions. And unlike the tree-hugger environmentalist image, that doesn't necessarily mean just planting some trees to help absorb carbon dioxide.

"It's less about trees and more about investing in renewable energy and energy-efficient projects in developing countries that will save the equal amount" of carbon dioxide, Peacock said.