Is all this air travel really necessary?

Peter du ToitI'm the founder of FutureWork IQ where I spend my time assisting businesses to improve their climate literacy so as to understand the projected impacts from the expanding climate crisis and how to adapt their workplaces in the face of these impacts.

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?