THE MILLER COMPANY Ideas that Inspire ™

At The Miller Company’s Lunch & Learn on Thursday, March 27, 2008, George Lynch, Vice President of Brand Marketing for Sabre Holdings, presented How the "Green" Movement Impacts your Brand and your Marketing.  George, a marketing expert that has been with Sabre for over 20 years, has been very involved in Sabre’s focus on corporate sustainability as well as developing their brand strategy.  Sabre, the leader in driving breakthrough performance for the world’s largest industry—travel and tourism, offers a portfolio of travel marketing, distribution and technology solutions to their clients.  Sabre headquarters is in Southlake, Texas, and they have more than 9,000 employees in 45 countries.

Sabre’s vision is “Connecting people with the world’s greatest travel possibilities and assuring responsible travel options for generations to come” (sustainable tourism).  Today, the aviation industry accounts for 2% of carbon emissions—a small figure compared to total footprint of transportation (13.5%) or the total output from electricity and heat (24.6%).   Their goal is to balance business objectives with societal, social and ecological concerns, and Sabre wants to think about the whole climate change discussion in terms of business opportunity, as much as we think of it in terms of being good corporate citizens.

Air travel is growing 5-6% year over year, and Sabre knew that in order to provide their clients with the best solutions, they needed to “practice what they preached” to measure and reduce their own environmental footprint.  They started with the development of the first LEED Silver Certified project in Texas (900,000 square foot corporate headquarters) by incorporating several energy and water conservation practices.  Secondly, they promote environmentally responsible and sustainable business practices in travel and tourism by offering products and services that will help clients to promote sustainable travel.  For example, Travelocity GoZero and Lastminute.com have a CarbonWise option to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and greenhouse gases (35% of people choose this options for an additional $34), and Sabre Airline Solutions’ consultants work with airlines around the world on fuel savings engagements. Every gallon of fuel Sabre saves clients keeps 20 pounds of CO2 from being released in the atmosphere!

Sustainability is the practice of promoting ecologically, culturally and economically sensitive measures to mitigate a negative impact on the environment and local culture, while helping to generate income and employment - as well as to promote the conservation of local ecosystems.

Corporate Trends

     60% of global executives see the strategic importance of corporate sustainablity

     Nike, Target, Wal-Mart, Microsoft, J&J, and Apple announce their plans to reduce and eliminate toxic components and have CO2 emission reduction targets

     Wal-Mart re-ups green commitment - their most energy-intensive products must be 25% more energy efficient within 3 years

     Dell & HP commit to aggressive recycling goals for e-waste

     Xerox beats them all by diverting 2 billion pounds of e-waste from landfills through re-use and recycling parts

In summary, while environmental measures may represent an upfront cost for many companies, the payback comes in terms of consumer transparency, long term savings, less exposure to liability and good brand image.  “If you don’t like change, you are going to like irrelevance even less.”