Specific actions/policy recommendation:

For business purposes, university employees travel all over the world, which is reported on the ChromeRiver database. We recommend that the starting point and destination are added to the ChromeRiver expense or reimbursement reports. This will allow the university to clearly report our travel emissions.

This would include reporting on one-way trips, roundtrips, and multi-city trips, as well as a variety of travel methods, via train, bus, plane, or car.

Currently, in our Expense Reports, following information is requested:

• Type of travel (air, train, or car)
  • Within Airfare: start date, end date, airline, class, traveler.
  • Within Train: start date, end date, traveler.

We are requesting that a field is added for departure location, end destination, and any layover locations. We also recommend that the nomenclature is updated from “Start Date” to “Travel Start Date" and from “End Date” to “Travel End Date”. This will make reporting clearer. We can easily calculate miles traveled and emissions from that travel.

Reference for travel reporting:

• Higher Education Air Travel Emissions Mitigation Strategy Report - by Karina Jang

• University of Edinburgh | Business Travel Reporting | Business Travel Report

Suggested unit/department to address implementation:

University of Illinois System

Rationale for recommendation:
The current expense reporting system for the University of Illinois, ChromeRiver, has certain limitations, and this recommendation would help alleviate that issue.

For an example scenario, where a faculty/staff member spent $300 on a round trip from Chicago to Washington DC (with a layover in Atlanta) - starting on 9/15 and returning on 9/20.

9/15 - Chicago to Atlanta to DC

9/20 - DC to Atlanta to Chicago

Within the current ChromeRiver system, the following information is requested:

• Type of Travel – Airfare
• Start Date – 9/15
• End Date – 9/20
• Amount Spent - $300
• Airline – Delta
• Class – Economy
• Traveler – John Doe
   

The Proposed expense report will look something like this:

• Typer of Travel – Airfare
• Travel Start Date – 9/15
• Departure location – Chicago
  • Are there layovers? (Yes/No)
    • Layover 1 location: Atlanta
  • Any additional layovers? (Yes/No) - repeat
• Destination – Washington DC
• Travel End Date – 9/20
• Departure location – Washington DC
  • Are there layovers? (Yes/No)
    • Layover 1 location: Atlanta
  • Any additional layovers? (Yes/No) - repeat
• Destination – Chicago
• Amount spent: $300
• Airline – Delta
• Class – Economy
• Traveler – John Doe

This way, we can easily calculate miles traveled and emissions from this travel. The rationale for this recommendation comes from an air travel emissions study, performed by Karina Jang (Sustainable Transportation Intern at F&S) who did research last year on how to reduce emissions; she found that the baseline was difficult to compare to due to lack of data. She suggested this change would make it easier to set goals and monitor emissions.

Connection to iCAP goals:

This would help us to meet iCAP Transportation goal 3.5, which is to “Reduce net air travel emissions from FY14 baseline by: 50% by FY24 and 100% by FY30.” By establishing a clearer reporting system, we will be better able to examine the data and how our emissions have reduced over time.
 

Perceived challenges:
As there are 3 universities in the U of I system, this recommendation is going to have a system-wide change, which is a challenge. Additionally, ChromeRiver is a third-party expense reporting/management tool, and our control over its processes may be limited.

Anticipated timeline of implementation:

FY26

Anticipated budget (identify if cost is up-front or continuous):

No cost associated with this recommendation