Prince Harry's Travalyst Focuses on Corp Travel Carbon Emissions

25.08.2023 - 14:42 / skift.com / prince Harry / Matthew Parsons

After collaborating with several major online agencies, and more recently Google, not-for-profit Travalyst has now added two global distribution systems to its sustainable travel coalition.

Travalyst was founded by Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, and encourages greener practices across the industry. On Monday it announced it had added Travelport to its collective, alongside Amadeus which joined at the end of October.

The coalition also includes TripAdvisor, Booking.com, Trip.com, Skyscanner and Visa, which use its “Travel Impact Model” for calculating carbon emissions from air travel. This model is also being made available for free as a download on GitHub.

Now Travalyst wants to scale up its efforts by targeting the corporate travel industry, with business trips on the radar of climate change protestors around the world. On Saturday 100 people stormed a private jet enclosure at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport to prevent them departing.

The new partners come as the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference (or COP 27) takes place in Egypt, where its head Antonio Guterres said: “We are on a highway to climate hell with our foot still on the accelerator,” according to reports.

Travalyst wants more organizations to use adopt its calculator, and adding Amadeus and Travelport, which are used by corporate travel agencies, could help it expand its reach.

“We are building together towards a uniform sustainability framework that is consistent, credible, and easy to understand for both travel providers and consumers,” said Lucas Bobes, group environmental officer and head of environmental, social, and governance reporting at Amadeus.

Travelport, meanwhile, will take an active role in collaborating on the Travalyst framework and implementing its methodology for emissions reporting in travel retailing. The technology company will also use Travalyst’s data methodology for its new Travelport+ platform to help its travel management company and agency customers accelerate sustainable travel, by giving them more tools to sell the most eco-friendly offers, and offer better reporting.

“It is incredibly important for us to take action and collaborate as an industry on unifying and scaling the way we report on sustainability standards, so everyone can become informed and make sustainable travel more feasible for corporates, agents and travelers,” said Tom Kershaw, chief product and technology officer at Travelport.