Karen Kadin, our managing partner, was quoted in an article in C&IT about ‘flight shaming’ – read her full comments below:
‘I can’t fathom how anyone wasn’t moved by Greta’s emotive but scientific address to our world leaders and I’m adamant that we all need to do more. There are a number of industries who have a pervasive culture of frivolity and who fly for the sake of flying; people who fly three or four times a week and think nothing of hopping on a flight to LA for a game of golf or lunch with a client and then flying straight back. Whilst I acknowledge that building relationships with clients face to face is important, I think that more could be done to make these trips more purposeful by adding other meetings to the trip.
We have to be aware that our industry has a hugely positive impact on destinations that rely on tourism. We can’t cripple a country’s entire economy by cutting business events and incentive travel. Incentive tourism has a place, but we have to ensure that any negative impact is offset and that events are as worthwhile as possible.
As an industry, we can evolve the pre-production process by cutting back on flights to client meetings and site visits. As trust between a client and an agency is established, the regular client / agency meetings can evolve into a more virtual relationship. We have a client in Hong Kong and the first time we worked with them we attended a lot of meetings to build the relationship. Now that trust is firmly established, they are more than happy to meet us virtually whenever possible. We also have clients in Boston and have established a team on the ground who meet the client face to face with the rest of us patching in from whichever country we are in.
Site visits are critical but the whole team doesn’t have to attend; technology and virtual tours can help reduce the number of people who have to fly. There are other ways of getting to meetings, and we do encourage train travel where ever possible, but the vastness of the US means that it is totally impractical to expect a delegate to drive from Washington DC to Austin.
Another consideration is the use of local suppliers – we have a policy of using local suppliers rather than flying people in wherever possible. This has the double benefit of not only reducing environmental miles, but also further feeding the local economy and acting as a force for good.
Will we see clients reduce their events due to flight shaming? A number of years ago, a few of our clients reviewed their events strategy and put a stop to flying for a year and didn’t run their big international conferences for both monetary and ecological reasons. They saw a definite drop in employee motivation and engagement and so the events were reintroduced and are now very well thought through, impactful, cost effective and business critical.’
