The objective was to ban something that contributes to Climate Change; I banned Business Flights. And then designed a service to help deal with the ban; Sales Reach. Sales Reach is a company that reaches clients on behalf of business people Europe-wide. Experienced Facilitators from the destination country referee meetings, host, wine and dine clients whilst you present virtually through your web-cam. Not only addressing issues of technology, but invisibles such as client ´seduction’, cultural differences, trust and insecurity. Saving companies a substantial amount of time and money and saving the environment millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide.’

And people wonder why environmentalism gets a bad rap. There's a perfect example - focus on something trivial relative to the problem (business flights and climate change), propose a severe, control-based "solution" (banning), then propose a ridiculous alternative that has no basis in human realities.

Dumbest business idea ever.

Not so quick--business flights are a huge contributor to climate change.

From Worldwatch's new Vital Signs publication (at http://www.worldwatch.org/node/4344):

"Because planes emit carbon dioxide (CO2), water vapor, and nitrogen oxides high in the atmosphere, their emissions contribute to climate change at about THREE TIMES the rate of similar emissions from cars."

And: "Despite rising passenger numbers [to 2 BILLION in 2005], only about 5 percent of the world’s population has ever flown."

Obviously these passenger stats are not restricted to business travel, but we all know that business travel makes up a large proportion of the plane trips that do occur.

I think this project is an ingenious exercise in solutions-oriented thinking and I am glad to have learned about it.

Dear Anon, I understand your gripe. The brief 'Ban it. Deal with it,' which was set by the RSA not by myself, is severe. Not by any means meant to spit out a 'solution' but rather to provoke thinking. (Whether you believe design for debate is a useful tool is another discussion) Having to work to such a brief many less regimental compromises were abandoned. Frustrating? Yes. So I decided to shoot for as grounded a solution as possible. Firstly the ban is restricted to Europe where high speed trains etc. offer an uninterrupted work opportunity (many seem to forget that). Secondly, this project is founded on strong user research (conducted at airports, discussing with experts and much time spent within leading corporations, talking to real business people who were ultimately positive about the outcome) I don’t actually believe that Business flights should be banned but I did discover that a large number of those flights are completely unnecessary. (Some businesses book 2 cheap flights per return trip so that they could happily miss the earlier flight if they felt like it. Others booked 15 seats in advance, if these weren’t used then no big deal.) This will not save the world but is an issue that should be addressed nonetheless. By presenting a service that takes care of the said ‘invisibles’ companies can happily save time and money (this is what they care about). In turn this would save the environment millions of tones of CO2 every year. Sales Reach would be a successful, feasible, environmentally friendly business idea with or without the ban. That was the point.

Wow good idea. Because everyone knows if you don't take that plane flight it will be canceled right?

If enough people don't take that flight, then yes, theoretically it will be cancelled! The whole idea behind using your purchasing power to fight a cause is to demand less of what is bad and more of what is good.

Let's look at some facts.

In the US, commercial aviation accounts for 1.8% of greenhouse gas emissions. Toss in general aviation and it bumps to about 2%. This is pretty much along the lines of other developed countries.

By contrast, light vehicles account for 16.4% of emissions -- over eight times as much as air travel.

Water vapor persists in the atmosphere for 9 days. CO2 persists for scores of years, at minimum. Also, any water vapor from a plane is insignificant in relation to naturally-occuring vapor.

Also, air travel is a shared mode, so individual trip decisions have very little marginal effect on fuel consumption and therefore greenhouse gas emissions. By contrast, trips via light vehicles almost always represent unique trip decisions.

Only 16% of business travel is done via air, whereas 81% is done via personal vehicle.

Like I said - it's not significant.

Is the 16% by air, vs 81% by personal vehicle calculated in number of trips or in total DISTANCE? Because most plane trips will trump a number of car trips.

Also, even if traveling by plane is a shared mode (in *most* cases--but the use of private jets is on the quick rise!), the per capita CO2 emissions from someone traveling by plane will be greater *by unit of distance* than by someone traveling the distance by car...and when you add in the radiative forcing multiplier of 3-4x, you can see why it is a very significant problem.

And the water vapor released by planes has a greater effect than you are explaining--it contributes to the formation of contrails, which lead to high clouds, which have a role in trapping heat to a greater degree.

Is the 16% by air, vs 81% by personal vehicle calculated in number of trips or in total DISTANCE? Because most plane trips will trump a number of car trips.

Yes, it's total number of trips, but all the trips are long distance - ie, in excess of 100 miles one way. It was merely to illustrate that surface transportation accounts for the vast majority of business trips, even in the US. Regardless, it doesn't change the fact that commercial aviation, as a whole, accounts for only 1.8% of greenhouse gas emissions.

Also, even if traveling by plane is a shared mode (in *most* cases--but the use of private jets is on the quick rise!), the per capita CO2 emissions from someone traveling by plane will be greater *by unit of distance* than by someone traveling the distance by car

Let's examine that.

In 2004, the average energy intensity of a domestic air flight was 3,297 BTU/passenger-mile. For automobiles that number was 3,527 and for light trucks it was 4,452.

The CO2 emission coefficient for gasoline and diesel are both higher than for jet fuel, so your assumption is incorrect. Commercial air travel puts out less CO2 per passenger mile on average than light vehicles.

http://www.bts.gov/publications/national_transportation_statistics/html/table_04_20.html
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/factors.html

and when you add in the radiative forcing multiplier of 3-4x, you can see why it is a very significant problem. And the water vapor released by planes has a greater effect than you are explaining--it contributes to the formation of contrails, which lead to high clouds, which have a role in trapping heat to a greater degree.

Show me some actual data that there is some massive multiplier effect going on that the fundamental emissions share data isn't containing. And again, water vapor is simply nowhere near as persistent in the atmosphere as CO2, and there's no way that the volume of output from airplanes has any significance compared to total water vapor in the atmosphere - thimble in an ocean, so to speak.

It. Is. Not. Significant.

Focus on the big things -- surface transportation and fossil fuel combustion for electricity. That's over 1/2 of emissions right there.

For relative CO2 emissions (to surface transport) and radiative forcing please see http://www.aef.org.uk/downloads/FlyNowFull.pdf page 7.

For share of emissions and radiative forcing please see http://www.ipcc.ch/pub/av(E).pdf

On your point about all trips being "long distance- ie, in excess of 100 miles one way": there is a big difference between a 200 mile car trip and a routinely several thousand mile plane trip, by which business travel is often characterized.

"And again, water vapor is simply nowhere near as persistent in the atmosphere as CO2, and there's no way that the volume of output from airplanes has any significance compared to total water vapor in the atmosphere"

It is not a matter of it being persistent. It is a matter of the vapor leading to cloud formation, which causes the warming phenomenon. Obviously one plane does not create a significant effect, but have you looked at the skies above a busy airport recently? Especially with certain temperature conditions, the contrails can spawn high wispy clouds, which do create a change in weather patterns. See research done after Sept 11 looking at the increase in temperature variance (max/min temps) with virtually no planes flying over US.

Energy Intensity of Passenger Modes
(Btu per passenger-mile)

Air, certificated carrier, Domestic operations: 3,297

Transit motor bus: 3,496

So, following the same "per capita emissions" logic, we should ban transit buses, since they put out more greenhouse gas emissions per person than commercial jets, not to mention surface pollution that we all breathe.

But no one gets worked up about transit, do they? So why all the fervor about flying - particularly business flying, and even more particularly private jets?

This is what I'm saying -- you all come off as being concerned more about class issues than actual environmental impact and priorities.

"The climate impacts of different anthropogenic emissions can be compared using the concept of radiative forcing. The best estimate of the radiative forcing in 1992 by aircraft is 0.05 Wm-2 or about 3.5% of the total radiative forcing by all anthropogenic activities. For the reference scenario (Fa1),the radiative forcing by aircraft in 2050 is 0.19 Wm-2or 5% of the radiative forcing in the mid-range IS92a scenario (3.8 times the value in 1992)."

ref