Travel Carbon Reduction Program

Overview

Air and car travel has a significant environmental impact generally and is the largest category of environmental impact that OMNI has as a remote-first consulting firm. We won’t go into the well-established science here, but there is significant research suggesting that air travel and road travel have significant impacts on the environment.

As part of our environmental sustainability plan, we are taking a few steps to mitigate and offset the impact of our business travel.

Travel Policy Update

Policy Change: During business travel, whether local or beyond, we encourage all staff to be conscious of the environmental impact of their mode of transportation and recommend, whenever feasible, choosing lower-impact modes. This can include:

  • using public transportation for local travel at your destination or to and from the airport, etc.

  • traveling by rail/train if feasible to get to your destination.

  • if car travel is necessary, carpooling with multiple colleagues.

  • finding lodging within walking distance of your primary destination or with proximity to public transit to minimize the need for local car trips

Our travel policy does not mean that our staff will no longer travel for business or go completely out of their way to follow these guidelines. However, using public transit or staying closer to our client destinations, for instance, are small but effective strategies to lower the environmental footprint of business travel and complete necessary trips in the most responsible manner possible.

Carbon Offset Program

On at least an annual basis, OMNI Institute will compile a report of our estimated vehicle miles traveled (VMT) and air miles and will purchase carbon offsets to mitigate the impact of our travel.

After tallying our miles, both driven by vehicle and air travel, we will use an online calculator to purchase carbon offsets for that travel. While carbon offsets are not a silver bullet, when done well they are one way of minimizing impact until policy and technology solutions make travel more efficient.

Initial Investment

As an initial investment to offset our 2022 travel, we purchased $403 in offset:

  • 12,599 VMT, produces approximately 3.53 metric tons (mt) of emission, with an offset cost of $56.48.

  • 17 staff took an estimated 35 trips that we estimated resulted in 21.83 mt of emissions with an offset cost of $348.64

We understand this program and policy change is not a silver bullet. Carbon offsets are not perfect and have received criticism for not addressing the root problems associated with the environmental impact of travel, only serving as a temporary solution until there is more systemic policy and/or technological solutions to the carbon emissions problem. This is true, however, we believe that this is a small step for our business to support efforts to offset emissions and we look forward to larger and longer-term systemic solutions.