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At a remote conference, tour guides at two global consulting firms said their companies intend to cut back on business travel after the lockdown. Capgemini’s Katharina Navarro and Cognizant’s Drew Mitchell both noted that their advisors performed relatively well during the pandemic, leading companies to re-evaluate the need for regular international travel.

Over the past decade, environmental, social, and governance (ESG) (ESG) risks have quickly moved to the top of the investment community’s top priorities – and as a result, C-suite resistance in the advisory industry has decreased significantly. With corporate equity secured, the world’s largest consulting firms have been driving key ESG initiatives in both their companies and their clients over the past few years.

A number of ESG industry leaders have placed great emphasis on travel as part of this effort. For example, strategy giants Boston Consulting Group and Bain & Company both recently announced plans to reduce the number of trips their employees make and ensure that those trips are powered by sustainable energy.

Now the technology-oriented consulting firms Capgemini and Cognizant have announced plans to curb business travel and the emissions it causes. The tour guides of both global consulting firms have outlined programs that make employee travel extremely difficult to justify after successfully running their businesses remotely amid the pandemic.

Cognizant has decided to continue the travel ban for the remainder of the year. According to Drew Mitchell, Cognizant’s Regional Travel Director for the Americas, the company has found that its sales and customer teams have been “very successful at making virtual presentations,” and Cognizant will “try and continue”.

During a two-day virtual event hosted by WIN Global Travel Network and Hickory Global Partners, Mitchell announced that the company will introduce pre-approval requirements for all travel that is on budget from the first quarter of 2022. Cognizant is currently developing the approval form and code to prepare for this launch.

Meanwhile, according to Katharina Navarro, Capgemini’s global travel category manager, there is the option of a travel cap, with further cuts due to corporate sustainability plans. She said at the same event that by doing so, Capgemini will take a “zero-based” budgeting approach, questioning the need for and profitability of every single trip from 2022 onwards. In this case, employees may need to “bundle” several. Reasons to travel in the future instead of trying to book a flight for just a single meeting.

Navarro added: “It was a bit of a positive shock to see that we can do so much digitally and that we can not only acquire new customers, but carry out complete end-to-end projects on a virtual basis … new proven concept.”

In addition to the environmental benefits, there are also great financial motives. When you combine the efforts of both companies, the lack of future business travel could save the companies a total of $ 900 million on their budget. Cognizant has 300,000 employees and, prior to Covid-19, spent $ 250 to $ 300 million on air travel alone, according to Mitchell. Meanwhile, of Capgemini’s 250,000 employees, 80,000 traveled worldwide – and the cost of travel was $ 600 million, Navarro confirmed.

However, the news may be less welcome for the aviation and hospitality industries. After being ravaged by the crisis during the lockdown months, the surviving hotels and airlines will have viewed the return of business travel as a lifeline – but as more and more companies scale back their trips this way, it is a lifeline that increasingly looks like it is theirs Disappoint expectations.