Boston Consulting Group – a first-mover in sustainable business travel

Boston Consulting Group

a leading management consulting firm operating in over 50 countries

1,000

employees in the Nordic region, 22,000 employees globally

30%

reduction goal for business travel emissions by 2025.

3 challenges Boston Consulting Group wanted to solve:

1. Cutting business travel emissions

Boston Consulting Group aims to permanently cut their business travel emissions by at least 30% per FTE by 2025 (compared to 2018 baseline), with expected further improvements to follow while still enabling consultants to travel to clients quickly whenever needed in order to deliver the greatest value to clients.

2. Attracting top talent

While management consulting has traditionally entailed intensive global travel, top consultants today want to see their employers decrease the environmental impact of talent’s business travel.

3. Leading by example

BCG wants not only to advise organizations and companies on how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions but to catalyze change by taking concrete action themselves.

”The most important carbon initiative for us is to lessen our travel emissions. The question was, how to do that while simultaneously increasing the value we bring to our clients.” Teemu Ruska, Senior Partner and Management Director, Boston Consulting Group

Solution

As part of the company’s net-zero commitment, a group of analysts at Boston Consulting Group took on a thrilling challenge: finding the best way to permanently reduce emissions from global business travel by at least 30%.

While BCG continues to focus efforts on reducing travel emissions by building on the lessons learned during the global pandemic, it is recognized that some corporate travel for in-person meetings is likely to remain.

”After a couple of months of thorough research, it became clear that there is currently only one compatible solution for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from air travel, and that is sustainable aviation fuel,” says Teemu Ruska, Senior Partner and Management Director at Boston Consulting Group.

After negotiating with multiple partners, Boston Consulting Group decided to partner up with Neste, the world’s leading producer of renewable fuels derived from waste and residue raw materials.

BCG chose Neste for the Nordic region due to the impressive sustainability of the company’s whole supply chain. Another decisive factor was that Neste already had long-time partnerships with BCG Nordics’ key airline carriers, Finnair and SAS.

In June 2021, BCG, Neste and the two airlines started a pioneering model:

As the first organization with regular business travel in the world, Boston Consulting Group is now buying sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) directly from the producer, Neste, who then delivers the fuel to be used by Finnair and SAS.

An important part of the solution to get right was how to set up a third-party audit process to ensure that no other customers claim emission reduction on the same SAF volume as BCG.

”As this is a pilot project, another challenge was simply building a hassle-free process for all parties involved. Now that the model is up-and-running, I’m surprised about how little effort this demands from us,” says Ruska.

Results

In 2021, BCG Nordics will purchase enough of Neste MY Sustainable Aviation Fuel, derived 100% from sustainably sourced, renewable waste and residue raw materials, to cover the volume of all the flights with Finnair and SAS taken by BCG employees in the Nordics. The fuel gives an immediate solution for reducing the direct greenhouse gas emissions of flying, as it can reduce up to 80%* of greenhouse gas emissions compared to fossil jet fuel use.

Through the partnership, Boston Consulting Group will reduce its greenhouse gas emissions in the Nordics significantly - possibly even overshooting the initial goal of cutting per capita business travel emissions by 30% by 2025.

At Boston Consulting Group, where employees want to actively cut travel emissions to retain their license to operate, the new initiative has been welcomed with great enthusiasm.

Through this innovative partnership, BCG will significantly reduce emissions from flights taken by employees in the Nordics.

Given the SAF market is still nascent, it is important for stakeholders across the SAF value chain to collaborate to help stimulate and shape the future of the market. New partnerships like this one, send a clear demand signal from corporate travelers to spark further investment in this important market.

”We trust that Neste, as a truly innovative company that’s actively researching new raw materials, will be able to answer to the growing demand for SAF,” says Ruska.

Neste is currently looking for more corporate clients and airline partners to spread the impact further.

”We hope to see more organizations sharing this vision of not just compensating business travel, but directly cutting its emissions through partnership,” says Neste’s Sami Jauhiainen, Vice President of Business Development in Renewable Aviation.

*) The method used to calculate life cycle emissions and emission reduction complies with the EU Renewable Energy Directive (2009/28/EC).

”As first-movers, we can push others to move, too. This is the moment of truth for all organizations – start mitigating your emissions now to survive.” Teemu Ruska, Senior Partner and Management Director, Boston Consulting Group