How do I refuse to fly for work due to environmental concerns?

[itchybitzy]

I work for a large global company, and unfortunately travel often falls as part of the job. I've managed to keep my travel commitments to a minimum, as quite frankly I hate business trips with a passion, but I am still required to fly at least 2 transatlantic roundtrips per year, plus possibly one European trip.

In recent years I've become more concerned about the devastation we are creating to the environment and have been trying to maintain more sustainable habits to help 'do my bit' where possible. I recently calculated the impact my business trips are having on my annual CO2 footprint and it's staggering.

Has anyone refused to fly with work due to climate change worries? I'd like to broach this subject with my boss but am worried it might be detrimental to my career. The trips are just not worth the footprint in my mind and are not what I would consider essential to our business. I am prepared to video conference in to these meetings, even if it means working late into the night/early in the morning.

Advice or experience would be great! Thanks mumsnetters!

Don’t refuse but raise the issue across the company. There could be benefits that come out of it.

This sounds like you've come up with the environmental concerns because of your hatred of business trips.

Well, there is NOTHING I could do in my own life that would have the impact that refusing to fly for work would have. I go long-ish haul twice a year, and that accounts for more than 2/3 of my carbon footprint.

This is really important and it's fantastic that you are taking it seriously.

I haven't solved this at all myself, but my actions are at least now meaning that from this year on my little team of people will fly half as much as before. FAR from perfect, but a LOT better. There will be no change in what we do, or the quality of what we do (we'll just each do much more work on each trip). Some of these changes are REALLY EASY, and the reason why they're not made is just inertia.

So: go for it. Please!

I'd start by saying - New Year, fires in Australia, evidence of climate change ever clearer: can we make this the year when we try to get ahead of the game.

Propose the company invests in really good quality videoconferencing kit. Make a case that this will be great for employees w family responsibilities who struggle to travel; for the envt; for productivity (less time wasted).

Find alternatives for journeys that are often done. Eg my husband goes to France fairly often w work and they used to habitually fly him - he's found that it is usually quicker and cheaper to get the train, AND he can work on the journey (not really feasible when it's chop and change tube/flight/metro etc.)

Find ways of combining trips. Could you go once a year rather than twice? Could you stay for longer when you do go? How can tasks be shared out so that less travel is needed?

@Bluntness100 she doesn't need to refuse, just present the options and work together to find a solution if possible. I've been through it myself so I don't have a lack of realism. Companies are welded to the status quo, I didnt need to wait for the sustainability team to come up with solutions and the OP doesn't either.

Not coming back OP?

Request that you head up a working party to reduce the company's environmental footprint and costs.

We videoconference a lot more. The time can be inconvenient, particularly when you have New York and Wellington and Canberra on the same call, but we get round it by doing the meeting at 2100 London time and having a late start the next day,

No, I agree with Bluntness. Op will not be providing a lightbulb moment for her bosses, they’re already aware of climate change and the fires in Australia...
They presumably also know about op’s aversion to flying and will clock it for the self serving proposal it is.

Good for you giving this some serious thought OP. Business travel - much of it unnecessary from what I can tell - is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions and everyone saying 'Well the flight will be going anyway' is missing the point - by TAKING that flight you are creating demand and by NOT taking it you are decreasing demand. Therefore everyone who doesn't take a flight, either forgoing the trip altogether or finding a more eco-friendly form of transport, is reducing demand for aeroplanes in the sky, which is a good thing.

A guy I used to work for once said to me 'Bring me solutions, not problems'. I think if you frame this right with your boss and propose an alternative solution to him/her then you're in with the best chance of persuading him/her that the travel is unnecessary, but I think I'd start with reducing your travel and carbon offsetting, rather than trying to bin it all in one go, unless your boss is clearly on the same page as you when you broach the subject and reckon you can go all-in without jeopardising your job.

Tbh it sounds like you're just looking for an excuse not to go on business trips

I also travel a lot for work and can't really believe we still do this - half the time it's really unnecessary. About ten years ago now I tried to help my company trial telepresence, which is basically teleconferencing but in specially set up rooms, so it looks like you're all in one big conference room. We were looking at for the global leadership team from a cost and environmental perspective so that 80 people wouldn't have to spend time and money flying into one place, but in the end it was rejected as they all wanted to have their networking drinks and golf games!

I was convinced telepresence was going to become the next big thing and I'm not sure why it hasn't. It might be worth looking into this as an option and presenting it to your leadership team as something they could at least trial.

We all should be challenging those in decision making positions when it comes to the environment and how we sustain it to support life.

Someone on another thread mentioned '21st century working practises', to me, and I think this would be a good term for you. We should be using Skype or Webex, corporations must reduce their carbon footprint, and reducing business travel is an easy quick win. They need to be accountable.

I'll be having a similar conversation with my large employer. WFH arrangements for some of the week have been common place for a decade or so, however, new senior management means they want to start getting people onsite full time. 1000s of cars back on the road 5 days a week. It is unforgivable to me.

The cringing “mustn’t raise an issue or you will get fired” is very backwards and old fashioned thinking. If several people or fewer very senior people raise this as an issue and throw in words like optics current climate looking at what other similar organisations are doing on this things are likely to change. None of these companies want to look bad Australia is burning every one aware of this issue now and flying a big contributor. “This is the way we’ve alsways done it” won’t work any more. Dh is making a pain of himself at his work on these issues. They have to suck it up as he’s the highest biller they have and now another partner is backing him too. No more random overseas conferences. Less single use plastic in the canteen.

Businesses do seem slow at this when reputation drives change in other areas.

I work with a lot of different organisations as a freelancer and most already have a policy on this. I'd be really interested to know how often flying was required for OP's job, say, 5 or 10 years ago... it may well be that it's already cut way back as technology has improved. Certainly very few of the companies I work for send employees flying around the world on a whim these days.

As a pp said, there has to be a business case for doing it and a business case for not doing it. Relationships are important, a lot of them are best built face to face. But once established, you Skype - that's fairly basic these days isn't it?

Also we know nothing about op. If she’s talented or senior or well thought of her stance if presented well won’t “damage her career”. If she proposed this to my dh for example it would be career enhancing.

I worked with a senior associate who refused to work on MOD projects for moral reasons. She was an excellent lawyer and popular with clients so management facilitated this and if anything she got more respect.

Sorry all been busy at work then putting kids to bed.

So to answer some questions;

• I don't fly for holidays no. We holiday in UK or have a few times taken Eurostar to European destinations.
• Travel isn't essential for my job description nor is it in my contract. Not customer meetings or anything (not a customer facing role). It is travel for internal meetings like quarterly planning meeting (1 day meeting).
• Employer does have sustainability policy but it doesn't mention flying. My post was really aimed more at how I can use this to influence The business tbh.
• Global company so Skype/Teams calls and video conferencing is routine daily part of our working culture (everyday I'll be on Skype meetings with people located all over) so I wonder why we can't utilise this further.
• my company only allow economy flights, so swapping from business class to economy isn't an option here anyway.
• Already lead a pretty eco life and have become more aware of what small things I can do to help. Don't use plastic where possible (unavoidable sometimes due to packaging of some products), reduced my commuting by WFH a few days a week and opting for public transport where possible (depends on where I'm working and transport links).

My concern is that a transatlantic flight is a big footprint to attend a 1 day meeting.

I wouldn't want to jeopardise my job, but I do believe that businesses need to change their attitudes to flights and whilst I realise that the flight will leave whether I'm on it or not, I feel as more people come around to this way of thinking it drives collective change. Those people who refused plastic bags at supermarkets years ago would have been considered silly (bags will still be produced even if you don't take one, type arguments) but now we're in a place where plastic bags aren't provided as standard and that's fantastic.

Thanks to those who suggested joining the company's sustainability working group. I've enquired about this today and actually would love to do this to tackle many other areas I think the company could consider (e.g cardboard cups in coffee machine when we all could easily use the normals mugs).

Re: train to European meeting - this is a good idea. I did float the idea last year but was told by Travel Team internally that it was more expensive for the company. Will try and raise this at sustainability working group to see if if the company could organise business discounts with Eurostar like we have with British Airways and the like.

If you have to fly, perhaps you could donate to a tree-planting organisation to off-set your carbon footprint? I donate to MyTrees who plant with Conservation International, and in my account it shows me the impact of my donations (i.e how many flights it equates to!) so this might be a good option for you! Here's their website: bit.ly/My-Trees

If it’s for work then the flights are part of your employer’s carbon footprint not your own. It would be good for them to be working to reduce their carbon footprint but if they won’t make changes in this area you personally shouldn’t feel guilty about it.

At the very least, get a company-wide carbon offset policy in place for the flights.

I would also attack it as a matter of productivity - the loss of working time, the cost of the flights etc. There's also the simple fact that using videoconferencing can actually be more effective as you can structure, segment and record each session with downtime in-between.

Think it’s brilliant you are thinking of bringing this up. I find it mind boggling that people with kids don’t care about the environment and believe we should just carry on as normal. You are totally right to bring this up as an issue and I think, as others have said, a good solid list of benefits to your employer and reasons why would be what you need. Even if they say no initially you could start the spark for change. Years ago I did this with recycling. Everyone thought I was bonkers. Now recycling is commonplace in that office. Nothing ever gets done differently if people just say ridiculous things like ‘the flight’s going anyway’ because they won’t go or they’ll be much more inclined to find a climate friendly alternative once their profits are affected.

Article in the guardian about this issue today www.theguardian.com/travel/2020/jan/18/plane-wrong-how-your-bosses-should-cut-back-on-flights

My DH is a climate change scientist and flys more than anyone! Carbon emissions from planes are only 2% of total carbon emissions. With respect - your 2 trips a year will make no difference.

Just an update - I'm now part of the sustainability committee at my work (we have a corporate sustainability team employed globally, but they accept people from all over the business to form a broader committee to advise and review proposals). It's all very interesting stuff - not just the flying question - and I'm really pleased to be part of it so thank you to those who suggested it!

I've spoken with my line manager and broader senior management and they were really receptive. I've been relieved of my long-haul travel plans (i had x2 long-haul meetings I'd been invited to) that were booked for the next 6 months. They're happy for me to Skype in to these, and actually didn't realise that people might be happy to work odd hours and Skype in, rather than do the long haul travel and said that the common view was that typically long haul travel to meet in person was easier for people's schedules and work life balance (as opposed to joining via Skype for meetings which could run into the early hours due to time differences) so that's why it tends to be the default. Hopefully it's made them think about at least offering the Skype as an alternative as I think this helps go that bit further towards changing company attitudes towards flying and also might provide choice for those (e.g. working parents, carers) who find being away from home on business difficult to manage with family commitments.

Happy to keep people posted on further developments if they're interested in this topic!

@SallyWD - Appreciate that, but for my personal carbon footprint the flights really ramp it up substantially and I'm not comfortable with this given that I can join the meetings virtually (and some are not strictly even necessary IMO). Whilst I know that my few measly flights a year will not change the world, I'm trying to do my bit within the limits of what I personally can help with - in the same way that one person eating vegan will not reduce all C02 emissions relating to meat production, but raising awareness and encouraging others to follow suit (be that deciding not to eat meat a few days each week or even going completely meat free etc.) might help to change the collective thinking and drive broader positive changes going forwards.