Taking a page from the hotel industry, the British office of Big Four accounting firm PwC has restricted business class travel…for the environment.
PwC Restricts Business Class Travel
Partners and directors at the UK division of PricewaterhouseCoopers have been presented a new travel policy that restricts business class travel to longer overnight flights. Under the new policy, business class travel will only be allowed:
- when flying long-haul overnight -or-
- due to a “business-critical” reason
Marissa Thomas, a managing partner at PwC UK, who guides the firm’s sustainability strategy, explained:
“Flights account for the majority of our carbon emissions, so we’re only going to meet our net-zero target if our people take a really thoughtful approach to air travel.
“We’re also encouraging people to make the most of their business trips, perhaps spending longer at a destination to reduce multiple visits. Seeing clients and colleagues in-person is really important, so we have to find ways to do that in the most carbon efficient way.”
Theoretically, travel expenses are simply billed to the client lending credence to the statement that this is not about cost-cutting.
But think of it this way. Say PwC is consulting for a multi-national firm that requires its associates to travel between London and Doha. Billing clients $5-7K for pricy business class tickets may not directly take away from the PwC bottom line, but it will add to client expense and potentially make that client less likely to pour more business into the account the firm.
As noted in the UK Financial News:
After demand for advice on issues like digital transformation and restructuring boomed during the pandemic, consultancies are now finding appetite for their services squeezed.
Hundreds of jobs have been cut, promotions to the equity partner ranks have been tightened, and start dates for graduate positions pushed back to avoid too many staff sitting idle, particularly in deals teams with capital markets activity still anaemic.
To say that this is not about costs is about as laughable as hotels asking guests to decline cleaning service for “the environment.”
And then there’s the “business-critical” exception which is about as wide as football field. You can bet that most trips will be “business-critical.”
This is virtue signaling, plain and simple.
CONCLUSION
PwC is restricting business class travel, claiming it is pursuant to its bid to reach net-zero carbon emissions. But it seems to me the most likely explanation is to reduce client expenses to increase business and also to virtue signal.
What is you take on this? Should more large firms restrict business class travel?
(image: Qatar Airways // Hat Tip: PYOK)
Especially across the pond, where the delta of carbon impact of Eurobusiness must be negligible as compared to Economy…
What an insult to those actually trying to lower pollution – this sort of gimmick masking cost cuts diminishes the cause of those trying to reduce pollution in the larger sense.
Make travel miserable for the people whose job is to travel and they’ll find ways to minimize it. I’ve had trips I didn’t do because the travel arrangements were not palatable to me so I figured out how to avoid it or combine with something else. I’ve even spent my own dime a couple times to stay somewhere for a weekend to avoid flying across the country back home just to turn around and go to a different point on the other coast on Monday. Give me a redeye in coach and I’ll find a way that doesn’t require me traveling.
SOWs aren’t always set up to have all expenses billed to the client. I was in consulting and we rarely had a pure “T&E” contract. Normally we had a expenses as a percentage of the overall SOW. This would lead managers to really managing travel budgets.
It’s just a joke….. The bottom line, is that this is marketing bluff…… or better to say greenwashing to push forward cost-saving.
Nearly all flights to US, Asia and SouthAfrica, so all real long-haul flights in or out of UK have at least one over-night segment. So the rule does not apply. So people will not fly Y+/PE to US and back in C – there will be no savings,
Lastly, if they pay $5-7K for C, they have a bad procurement team.
I’m glad to see this happen. I’m counting on a cooler summer as a result, right?
PWC’s consultancy business is overstaffed and not as profitable as it used to be and so this move is greenwashing to save the firm money and to try to motivate people to go out the door on their own.
EY is having the same sort of financial problems too, so let’s see how soon and how they follow in the footsteps of PWC.
I work for PwC US, and I don’t see what is laughable about the justification. Our firm regularly discusses progress towards our net zero target. This policy is consistent with our US travel policy which requires economy travel on flights within the continental US, or one step up from economy if the flight is intercontinental or greater than 3.5 hours for managing directors or partners. Im curious how you think they should have justified the change in policy given its consistency with the firms emission targets.
And how does travelling in coach in the same plane lead to less emissions than business? The only consistency here is the firm’s bulls**t targets.
That’s a whole different discussion and frankly, I tend to agree with you that the arbitrary distinction between your real estate (seat size) is a poor indicator of your carbon emission.
if every consultancy followed suite, then the demand for business class would decrease. Ultimately, there would be fewer business class seats and more economy seats. the airlines themselves estimate CO2 emissions are 3x higher for business passengers. ,,, to say it would make no difference is facile esp. for people who are used to advising clients on how to count beans.. eg maximize profits and minimize expenses…
And these seats take up 3x the real estate, so that is expected. Take out the premium cabins and airlines will still find a way to fill their flights representing the same CO2 output, even if the per capita is slightly lower.
What is facile is green washing accountancy, deceitful manipulation of numbers to hide real world impact. Rip out all business seats, replace them with coach and guess what, the plane still produces the same amount of emissions for the same flight. But thank you for acknowledging that its all about profits and expenses for folks like you.
Because it smacks of greenwashing a policy that was implemented primarily as a way of managing travel costs
Businesses trim travel budgets when the economy is great with no signs of trouble right?
Many do for earnings management purposes so as to boost share price and payouts/returns for senior management. And the consultancy side is more interest rate sensitive and cyclical on a microeconomic level than some other businesses and maybe even than the economy as a whole. The consultancy units had gone hiring crazy during the pandemic and are now bloated because of that and reduced natural attrition of employees.
“fighting the Fed” is risky and the Fed wants to drive down inflation. And so this kind of stuff should be expected for businesses such as this.
Bottom line is these companies did fine during Covid without business travel so I see this as a positive. Less pompous assholes on flights in suits and on their laptops complaining about the meal choices, and more leisure travelers enjoying themselves.
Plus more upgrades for those flying for pleasure. Win/win for everyone*
*Except the pompous assholes of course.
Most of the guys working for them seemed to rarely — if ever — come into the offices in suits for at least the last ten years.
And it seems like the ability to tie a tie has dropped or disappeared among a lot of the guys at PWC.
I worked at EY for the better part of a decade. I traveled all the time, and generally flew in shorts and a T shirt.
I’ve been retired from IBM for over ten years. They banned business class travel years before I retired, including on long routes such as to India.
Not sure if this is marketing. I worked at a consulting firm with lots of money spent on international J. Lots of our consultants enjoy the travel and make sure to hit spending limits to make UA GS, AA CK, etc. And sometimes book travel that is not essential. Those trips can end up costing an account 25k. This seems like a way to make people justify random trips and not fly to Dubai in J for an hour presentation the client didn’t request, which happens where I work.
No doubt you are correct, but the marketing is that this is for the environment. The reason reason, as you point out, is likely to save money.
Geography matters here. This is just PwC UK. They’re basically asking associates not to travel in business class on European routes. Anything else could fall under long-haul/overnight. To me, it’s a tacit way of saying “we’ll pay for Club World, but not Club Europe.” Honestly, that’s pretty reasonable.
The stipulation seems to be both long haul AND overnight at the same time. Plenty of long haul flights to/from Europe aren’t overnight, and then there’s the question of medium haul ones to/from MENA.
The scarier part to me in all of this is how all the bellwethers of a recession are ringing like crazy whether it’s the international cargo carriers showing demand way down while warning of layoffs or all the airlines seeing weaker demand or now this… that nearly all consulting firms are seeing significant drop offs and cost-cutting from the companies they serve.
It’s going to be an interesting 2024
And yet more job hiring each month and inflation better in check. Interesting times indeed.
very true as well
In my organisation, we are promoting remote working as one of our ways of reaching net zero. The logical thing would be for consulting companies to ban regular travel to client locations, only going on site when they need to gather information which isn’t easy to obtain remotely.
The above is unlikely to happen as consultancy services often have a lot to do with massaging egos, navigating internal politics, and obtaining future business through building close relationships with clients, bonding over dinner with key managers etc. The environment will have to wait!
When someone does a responsible thing, it is better to applaud it, instead of second guessing their intentions. Flying business class leaves more carbon footprint, not just because of real estate, but because of all the amenities that they require. Grow up guys. Be responsible journalist.
Dunno about the accounting side (maybe during crunch time when all the grads work themselves to death in a round of canis canem edit), but the consulting side of the big 4 adds nothing of value to the global landscape and the world would be better off without their existence.
Now that would reduce their footprint.
For a world wide consulting/accounting firm to be so afraid of their employees, in a cost cutting effort that they throw out an Alice In Wonderland seat size vs carbon emissions formula is not only laughable, it’s hysterical and sad. Is PWC unaware of the ability to purchase a “carbon offset” on most airlines tickets? (A dubious scheme at best). If PWC is willing to be this dishonest with their employees, imagine what they are doing to their customers.
I think that is quite right.
Part of the mission of management consultancy services is maximized by selling clients on pie-in-the-sky objectives to rake in the money for the management consultants. How they “deliver” is a never ending story itself, and that story is full of traveling to put in some face-time as part of selling the story to clients paying to be told stories the clients themselves are writing in part.
I was a partner in a boutique consulting firm. Our clients (Fortune 100 companies, state/federal govt., cities etc.) only paid for coach tickets, even if it was long haul (some of them capped the percentage, others were more open ended). I used my PlusPoints or cash to upgrade.
Similar here. My firm did not micromanage travel. They just reimbursed economy travel, for everyone and everywhere. The thinking was that you were very highly paid, and if you wanted business class, could pay for your own upgrade. I thought it was very democratic. It is also why I originally taught myself the ins and outs of miles and upgrades.
Whats laughable about it? Let me guess you also believe still 3 years later that the elextion was stolen?
You talking to me? Don’t be silly.