Two finance executives saw their budget for air travel slashed. Is this a sign that climate concerns have reached the finance sector?
Martin Flanagan and Greg Johnson have been spending much more time working in their home countries recently than in some far-flung place. The fund management firms they lead – Invesco and Franklin Templeton – have cut personal travel budgets for their executives by almost 50 percent over the past five years.
Air travel at Invesco and Franklin Templeton is part of the compensation package for management and is being disclosed for public scrutiny. U.K.-based «Financial News» (behind paywall) has analyzed the figures presented.
In 2018, Flanagan was allowed to spend $85,587 on flights booked by the company, while Johnson had $75,156 to spend.
Frivolous Budgets
Still, the figures remain substantial enough to prompt shareholders to complain. Their protests, however, had nothing to do with the «flying shame» phenomenon that has become one of the most tangible legacies of Greta Thunberg’s fight for the preservation of the planet.
The owners of the fund managers simply disapprove of the amounts of money that are being spent by the firms in general and have taken offense at air travel budgets.
«Flying Shame» to Land
At the annual general meetings of UBS and Credit Suisse, shareholders complained about the level of pay for managers, but they didn’t comment on air travel, not least because there are no numbers publicly available to document the time managers spend above the clouds. There’s no doubt though that bankers are flying frequently.
But there are early signs of a backlash, with the public sector leading the way. In the city of Zurich, for instance, politicians have launched a bid to reduce the amount of air travel by people working in the administration, as «NZZ» (in German only) reported recently. They plan to define a minimum distance below which air travel will be denied. Other means of travel, such as trains, will become the norm for shorter distances.
