London firm launches one-stop shop "green" travel booking service

UK "green" travel start-up Carbon Voyage yesterday launched a new online travel booking service designed to help firms minimise and offset emissions from business trips.

Speaking to BusinessGreen.com, company founder and chief executive James Swanston said that the new service would provide businesses and consumers with a one-stop shop through which to book taxi, executive car and rail journeys.

He added that the online booking service would automatically recommend the lowest-carbon journey, selecting rail over car journeys where possible, and provide a record of the cost and emissions generated by the trip for use in a company's financial and carbon accounts.

The site can also facilitate carpooling, letting users know if there is the opportunity to share a car for a particular journey.

In addition to attempting to minimise emissions from journeys, the company automatically offsets those carbon emissions that do result using offset provider Planet Positive.

Swanston said the firm currently had access to 5,000 cars across London, including a number of hybrids, and had partnerships in place with the Heathrow and Gatwick Express, which allows users to book tickets online.

"At the moment we have a London focus, but we are looking to build that out and add all UK train operators and other cab and executive car suppliers," he said. "In the long term we are also looking to add flight-booking capabilities and are investigating providing webconferencing services through the site so people can avoid travelling altogether where possible."