Salesforce, JetBlue partner for net-zero air travel

Photo: JetBlue

JetBlue and Salesforce announced Feb. 2 a new partnership that will leverage travel data and technology to help bring air travel into a net-zero future.

As the first airline to leverage Salesforce Net Zero Cloud, JetBlue will gain comprehensive insights into its emissions on the path to achieve net zero across its full value chain. To further build on this collaboration, Salesforce has joined JetBlue’s Sustainable Travel Partners program, announced earlier this year, as an inaugural customer. The newly launched program includes a suite of offerings to help corporate travel customers reduce their business travel emissions and meet corporate sustainability targets.

To reduce its impact on the planet, Salesforce will also help compensate for its business travel emissions through the purchase of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) certificates from JetBlue.

“The future of transformative climate action lies within the trusted customer-supplier relationship,” said Ari Alexander, vice president and general manager of Salesforce Net Zero Cloud. “We are thrilled that JetBlue is leveraging Salesforce Net Zero Cloud to prioritize data-driven climate action and proud to be a part of JetBlue’s Sustainable Travel Partners program to help accelerate the journey toward sustainable air travel.”

Following the implementation of Net Zero Cloud, JetBlue will make travel-emissions data available to the airline’s sustainable travel partners. Net Zero Cloud allows businesses to quickly track, analyze, and report reliable environmental data and take actions to achieve carbon neutrality.

“Accessing real-time, granular, and insightful emissions data has historically been a pain point as we track and work toward our decarbonization targets,” said Sara Bogdan, director of sustainability and ESG with JetBlue. “We are excited by the prospect of quickly compiling accurate and up-to-date emissions data in an easy-to-use format through the use of Net Zero Cloud. We’re excited for Net Zero Cloud to not only help us strategize and plan for our own 2040 net-zero target, but to also help us share that data with our sustainable travel partners, providing first-of-its-kind emissions reporting based on each corporate travelers’ actual JetBlue flights. As the world comes together to reduce our collective environmental impact, collaborations like these with Salesforce are vital as we share expertise in pursuit of shared goals.”

As part of its Climate Action Plan, Salesforce has set a goal of maintaining employee business travel emissions intensity below 50 percent of its 2020 baseline.

As a Sustainable Travel Partner program member, Salesforce, along with other inaugural customers, worked toward this goal by sourcing 325,000 gallons of SAF in 2021.

This strategy is promising. Leading U.S. airlines have pledged to work with government leaders and other stakeholders to make available 3 billion gallons of cost-competitive SAF in 2030. These purchases will help stimulate a market for lower carbon-emitting biofuel alternatives to traditional jet fuel.

The JetBlue Sustainable Travel Partners program will provide Salesforce with personalized, company-specific emissions data and actionable insights to help drive employee engagement, education, and behavior change at scale.

This builds upon Salesforce’s current efforts, which include an optimized employee travel booking tool that recommends lowest-emission modes of travel. This enables easy mode-switching on routes where a more sustainable form of transportation is a viable alternative, such as traveling by rail instead of air.

Salesforce is also engaging with its travel suppliers to encourage them to set science-based targets and provide Salesforce with carbon-neutral products and services through the company’s Sustainability Exhibit, which embeds sustainability into all of Salesforce’s supplier contracts.

In 2021, Salesforce also joined the Sustainable Aviation Buyers Alliance to help accelerate investment in high-quality SAF, and the First Movers Coalition with a commitment to replace 5 percent of Salesforce’s conventional jet fuel demand with low- or no-carbon alternatives.