Finnair launches online tool for business travellers to produce their own environmental reports
Mon 20 July 2009 – Finnair has added a service for companies to produce their own environmental reporting for their travel. The ‘Eco-Report’ tool on its Feel Finnair site enables comparison of the environmental impact of flight routes via different transit airports. Using the tool, emissions can be reported for internal and external stakeholder information purposes. The airline is promoting its hub in Helsinki as offering the most direct and environmentally-friendly routes between Europe and Asia, claiming connections via the northerly location can be as much as almost a fifth shorter than the same trip taken through other European connecting hubs.
“Environmental affairs are clearly of increasing interest to companies,” says Kati Ihamäki, Finnair’s Vice President, Sustainable Development. “Medium-large or large companies whose employees regularly travel between Europe and Asia can fly millions of extra kilometres and produce hundreds of thousands of kilos of extra CO2 depending on their chosen routes.
“Many companies attach importance to acquiring information about the environmental impact of business travel, but until now this has been difficult. Now we can offer companies whose employees fly on Finnair an easy-to-use tool designed just for this purpose.
“Companies have woken up to their environmental responsibilities, especially in connection with air travel. Environmental effects are regarded as more important in terms of their consequences for expenditure and productivity.”
Finnair suggests its direct route network and fuel-efficient fleet operating at a modern uncongested airport is a sensible option in reducing both unnecessarily flown kilometres and travel time. Ihamäki says the European mega-hubs are less efficient, with 10% more fuel consumed as a result of traffic congestion.
The airline offers a total of 400 route pairings between Europe and Asia, linking 40 European and 10 Asian destinations via Helsinki.
