Thomas Cook India, SOTC Travel, LTIMindtree together launch 'Green Carpet'

Omnichannel travel services firm Thomas Cook India and its group company SOTC Travel on Tuesday partnered with LTIMindtree to launch 'Green Carpet', a global platform that will help companies to monitor and manage their business travel emissions.

Markets regulator Sebi has mandated the top 1,000 listed companies in India by market capitalisations to make filings as per the Business Responsibility and Sustainability Reporting (BRSR) from 2023-24.

A SaaS-based platform, "Green Carpet" is designed to address specific concerns faced by organisations, helping them capture, monitor, analyse and reduce their carbon emissions from business travel.

It offers real-time insights related to Scope 3 emissions and helps organisations to significantly reduce their ESG reporting costs.

"The Sebi (Securities and Exchange Board of India) BRSR mandate extends to the top 1,000 listed companies by market cap - starting from FY24. So this is an immediate need for these enterprises.

"Of these 1,000 listed enterprises, roughly 50 per cent are already part of the B2B enterprise portfolio of Thomas Cook or SOTC across Business Travel, MICE or Foreign Exchange client portfolios. Our plan is to reach out to this large enterprise base first and aim to sign up about 25 per cent by this over the next 12 months," Thomas Cook India CEO and Executive Director Mahesh Iyer told PTI.

Besides, he said, the platform will also reach out across the L&T Group's very large roster of enterprise clients with this service proposition.

"With Sebi's mandate expected to increase its cover to the larger universe of listed companies in the next 2 years, this will allow us to expand our Green Carpet product to a larger base," he added.

The Green Carpet product is a subscription-based pricing model - basis trips undertaken by the company, so revenue will be a direct outcome of the number of clients signed on and the subscription paid, which in turn is based on the number of trips the company's employees undertake annually, Iyer stated.

Pricing for subscription is 3 tiered, USD 1,500 per annum for up to 2,000 travels, USD 2,500 per annum for between 2,000-10,000 travels and USD 3,500 per annum for above 10,000 travels, he explained.