Is all this air travel really necessary?

Peter du ToitI'm the founder of FutureWork IQ where I spend my time assisting businesses to design digital workplaces or “offices in the cloud.” These environments enable companies to allow flexible and remote working for their teams. I also teach the digital literacy, fluency, communication and collaboration skills needed to work in these modern technology-rich workplaces.

The recent IPCC report is pretty clear that aviation (and shipping) on its current trajectory, is playing a larger and larger role in human caused CO2 emissions.

(You can check your flights emissions with this calculator

Until we can create carbon neutral air travel – which I believe will happen – the only logical thing, in the meantime, would be to just fly less. In some countries, like Sweden and the UK this is becoming a serious part of the climate change conversation. In fact in Sweden, flygskam (flight shame) has become a buzz word referring to feeling guilt over the environmental effects of flying. I believe it’s a conversation we should all have.

How many of 480 million annual business trips can be dramatically reduced by simply meeting or training online via a video call?

While high value face-to-face meetings or events will forever remain important there are many meetings/trainings that can be done virtually negating the need for air travel or car commutes.

We have a 10-year window to radically change the way we do things to prevent a catastrophe. This is one thing we can immediately do.

What do you think?