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LEARNING RESOURCES
travellers in business and first class).
Some companies, including leading
accountancy practices, are already
Behavioural Aspects of Budgeting and Planning committing to reducing their business
Learn various approaches of budgeting and the distinctive travel emissions: EY aims to cut them by
features of each approach to exercise control over the 35% of 2019 levels by 2025; Deloitte to halve
operation and to deliver information for decision-making. them per employee by 2030.
Katherine Edenbach, CPA, chief
Find this course in the CGMA store and in the AICPA store. accounting officer at Emburse, a spend
COURSE management technology company
headquartered in the US, said that business
travel planning has generally been
Budgeting, Forecasting and Planning in Uncertain Times measured by “three C’s” — cost,
In this book, you will explore how traditional budgeting, convenience, and comfort.
planning, and forecasting processes have fallen short in “The other C in this equation is now
today’s business environment and what tools and techniques ‘carbon emissions’,” said Edenbach, who is
you can use to best meet your organisation’s needs. based in Portland, Maine. “Corporate ESG
initiatives are driving the need for
Find this publication in the CGMA store and in the AICPA
store. organisations to examine their business
travel programmes in order to minimise
EBOOK and offset their carbon emissions.
Consideration should also be given to areas
like carbon offset purchases as a standard
Improving Organisational Performance part of travel bookings.”
Use the beyond budgeting approach, key financial metrics, Edenbach said that this may take a shift
and benchmarking tools to evaluate business performance in in mindset for some finance teams, as the
a dynamic market. most sustainable option is often more
expensive than the lowest logical fare. Yet
Find this course in the CGMA store and in the AICPA store.
the benefits of meeting ESG standards and
COURSE bolstering an organisation’s reputation for
greenness are increasingly significant.
“As there will be fewer dollars spent
than before on travel, finance leaders
leader at Deloitte, based in Dallas, Texas, in lockdown conditions and travel should consider reallocating some of their
the US, suggested that organisations can limitations, 2020’s drop in CO 2 gives food organisation’s travel budget to make trips
switch to proactive rather than reactive for thought, particularly at a time when more sustainable,” she added. “Finance
approval of travel expenditure. Rather than organisations are under increasing teams should consider increasing the
measuring and evaluating costs after they pressure from the public, shareholders, tolerance within their travel policy to allow
have occurred, companies could plan and politicians to be greener. travellers to choose a more sustainable
expenses more closely before trips are “When the pandemic situation starts to option.” ■
confirmed. really stabilise, executives will begin to
“Companies can proactively ask implement the learnings from this
employees to provide the value of proposed prolonged pause and resume travel in a Resources
travel, a general itemised list of the costs to way that supports sustainability goals as
be incurred, which inherently drives well as the bottom line,” Jackson said. Articles
discipline of spend,” he said. “Financial Employee travel is one of the leading “The Case for Flexibility in 2022’s
management professionals should bring a contributors to corporate carbon emissions Budget”, FM magazine,
firm understanding of corporate objectives in the business sector. Research by Stefan 6 December 2021
— geographic expansion, growth markets, Gössling, a professor at Sweden’s Linnaeus
profitability goals, and they should ensure University School of Business and “Resuming Business Travel — It’s
that the budget supports those goals and is Economics, found 50% of global aviation Complicated”, FM magazine,
in alignment with forecasts.” emissions come from 1% of the world’s 20 July 2021
population, or “most-frequent flyers”,
Think sustainably many of whom are business travellers.
Increasingly, one of those goals will be Research suggests that business class travel Andrew MacDowall is an independent
consultant and writer based in
sustainability. Global CO 2 emissions fell — by taking more space per passenger — France. To comment on this article or
during 2020 thanks to lockdowns and can be responsible for five times the CO 2 to suggest an idea for another article,
reduced economic activity but have emissions per seat than those in economy contact Drew Adamek at
rebounded to near 2019 levels in 2021. class (though, of course, many business Andrew.Adamek@aicpa-cima.com.
While few in business desire a return to travellers travel in economy, and leisure
34 I FM MAGAZINE I February 2022