By Sophia Mendelsohn, Head of Sustainability, JetBlue Airways 
Corporate sustainability by definition is innovation because of the sheer newness of the concept. As such, corporate sustainability has helped reinvent how publicly listed companies around the world “create value” for shareholders.
The concept of corporate sustainability has redefined the average shareholder from one simply seeking to turn a profit to a partner. For example, it is not uncommon for a shareholder to expect to know the climate change mitigation plan of a company they are investing in. As corporate sustainability leaders in publicly listed companies across the globe, we have agreed to transform the very system we currently operate in.
However, innovation in corporate sustainability has been attacked on all sides. From one side it is said to be a distraction from a company’s main purpose – to create traditional, financial value for shareholders. From the other side, it has been slammed as doing too little, a Band-Aid for an amputation, or the new equivalent of whitewashing (greenwashing).
From the vantage point of a corporate office, sustainability leaders are charged with finding the balance between these criticisms where our companies can have their cake and eat it too. We are asked to create products and change processes that both save money (ideally very quickly) and save the world. There is no way to do this, and keep your job, other than to innovate.
The Aviation Industry
Few industries are better positioned to innovate than aviation. In 1908, wooden and cloth wagons were propped up on horse-carts to give them a bit of height advantage as they attempted to glide on a passing wind. Fast forward 100 years to double-decker planes with hundreds of people taking off from many different countries – by the hour.
According to Airlines for America (A4A), today the industry annually delivers $1.5 trillion dollars in value in U.S economic activity and 11 million+ jobs. A4A also notes, since 1978, U.S. airlines improved fuel efficiency by 120%, saving 3.6 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, despite a four-fold increase in traffic. This is the equivalent of taking 22 million cars off the road each year.
From my vantage point as part of an airline’s sustainability team, we work for an industry that thrives on fast change; all we have to do to capitalize on it is innovate.
“Mainstream tourists vs. Eco-tourists”
In the tourism industry, we know that the three S’s sell – sun, sea and sand; the wider and the whiter the beach and the clearer the turquoise water, the better the destination ratings. (An extra star may even be awarded if you can see your pedicure through the water). The tourism industry is used to focusing on travelers that seek these environments and building an infrastructure for them to buy into. These are traditionally considered “mainstream tourists.”
Most travelers do not get on a plane to see a reef-fish; they fly to exotic locales to close their eyes and lie down on the sand, and they tend to turn their back to the rest of the island and its needs. These tourists don’t typically care about “green stuff” – they just want a smooth vacation. The industry will admit that there are a few outliers – “eco-tourists.” But this minority doesn’t fill planes and therefore their concern for impact on vacation tends to not be a relevant part of an airline’s branding and messaging.
The JetBlue Experience – EcoEarnings: A Shore Thing
At JetBlue, we are reclassifying the mainstream tourist. We believe every single customer that gets on a plane or a cruise ship to the Caribbean is an eco-tourist. To JetBlue, that now includes the tourist who doesn’t snorkel or leave the grounds of their resort. If that individual bought a plane ticket to the beach, they are as much an eco-tourist as the couple camping under the rainforest canopy.
With this new classification, the next thing we are doing is measuring the obvious. It is obvious and intuitive that a family will pay more for a tropical vacation than they are usually willing to pay to go to a rocky beach or even home for the holidays. Airlines know that without tropical tourism, major chunks of their route maps would vanish.
So what exactly is the value that airlines receive from these pristine, paradise-like destinations? To find out, JetBlue is looking at our revenue per available seat mile (or RASM) – the industry’s standard unit of measure – and comparing it across destinations. We want to know what percentage of each route’s RASM is directly attributable to the healthy ecosystem creating and supporting the clean clear water we love and wide white beach we are laying on.
Ecosystem service evaluations have tried to do this before. Most recently the World Wildlife Fund announced that the oceans have an economic impact equal to $24 trillion. But this number is too abstract and large for decision makers to easily attribute to their businesses. By measuring the value of conservation in the familiar RASM metric, we are attempting to make the concept more relevant and translatable to business and governments, thus spurring investment into funds committed to environmental protection, planning, and infrastructure in the Caribbean.
For more information on JetBlue’s work to measure the value of clean beaches to tourism, take a look at our recent white paper – EcoEarnings: A Shore Thing. EcoEarnings seeks to begin to measure both the risk and return to JetBlue from the region’s natural attractions. Our study began by observing a positive connection between ecosystem health and RASM. The goal is to calculate the impact of key factors important for the Caribbean’s overall health including water quality, and waste along the shorelines.
For more information on JetBlue’s Sustainability platform visit www.JetBlue.com/green or follow me at: @SophiaLeonoraM
Sophia Mendelsohn is currently the Head of Sustainability at JetBlue Airways, where she is shaping policies and practices that enhance JetBlue’s competitive advantage and reduce environmental impact. Prior to JetBlue, Sophia was Head of Sustainability, Emerging Markets for Haworth Inc., a multinational manufacturer in the corporate real estate industry. At Haworth, she was responsible for increasing sustainable product offerings in emerging markets, including Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. Previously, Sophia worked for the Jane Goodall Institute, and international NGO, in Shanghai, China helping spread education about the environment to local and international schools in China. She managed a program called Eco Office, which helped partner corporations with local students in order to reduce the footprint of both offices and schools. Sophia sits on the board of GIGA, a Shanghai based NGO whose mission is to promote green building materials and transparency in the construction and design industry. Sophia is accredited in the Leadership in Energy Environment and Design (LEED) green building rating system and certified to perform Life Cycle Amylases (LCA) and lead Global Reporting Imitative (GRI) reports. She speaks, reads and writes Mandarin, and lived in China for more than 7 years and is a passionate rock climber and traveler.