As Booking Holdings’ Vice President of Sustainability, Kate Heiny leads sustainability across Booking Holdings’ operations, products and communities. She is responsible for leading the company’s strategy to help build a more sustainable travel industry as a global leader in the industry, in addition to deepening strategic alignment and impact across the company’s brands. Her team’s remit includes programs focused on product innovation and partner support, as well as collaboration with stakeholders across the industry. 

John Shegerian: Get the latest impact podcast right into your inbox each week. Subscribe by entering your email address at impactpodcast.com to make sure you never miss an interview. This edition of the Impact Podcast is brought to you by ERI. ERI has a mission to protect people, the planet, and your privacy, and is the largest fully integrated IT and electronics asset disposition provider and cybersecurity-focused hardware destruction company in the United States and maybe even the world. For more information on how ERI can help your business properly dispose of outdated electronic hardware devices, please visit eridirect.com. This episode of the Impact Podcast is brought to you by Closed Loop Partners. Closed Loop Partners is a leading circular economy investor in the United States with an extensive network of Fortune 500 corporate investors, family offices, institutional investors, industry experts, and impact partners. Closed Loop’s platform spans the arc of capital, from venture capital to private equity, bridging gaps and fostering synergies to scale the circular economy. To find Closed Loop Partners, please go to www.closedlooppartners.com.

John: Welcome to another edition of the Impact Podcast. I’m John Shegerian, and I’m so honored to have with us today, Kate Heiny. She’s the Vice President of Sustainability at Booking Holdings. Welcome, Kate, to the Impact Podcast.

Kate Heiny: Hello, John. Thank you so much for having me.

John: It’s great to have you. This is your first time on the show, first of hopefully many, and also the first time we’re covering this sector of all the important things in sustainability that you’re doing at Booking. But before we even go into all that stuff, I want to talk a little bit about you, Kate. Where did you grow up and how did you get on this very inspirational but also very important journey that you’re on?

Kate: Starting with a nice big open one. Where am I from? Where did I grow up? I’m obviously American. I grew up in Connecticut and we’ll say that’s for the final step here in the story. I got into this journey of sustainability in perhaps a funny way. I studied religion and environmental studies in university, and I got my master’s in environmental science and then later on business. But it was largely because I said, what am I going to do with this? I did environmental consulting for a few years, cleaning up spills in the ground, doing your classic phase one, two, and three studies. Really got frustrated with feeling like I was on the fixing end of something and not having any opportunity to drive a solution or avoid a problem in the first place. I quit my last consulting job, and I managed a gelato shop for about a year. I worked with environmentalhealthnews.org and the brilliant Pete Meyers. I read, and I combed global newspapers online for about three hours every day seeking news articles that connected human health issues and environmental issues. At the time, the website was a reposting site. It was in its early stage, and so really just seeking these stories to uncover them, to bring more visibility to it. Through that, really, I think a lot of my thoughts were formed and I just have this hypothesis, or my belief is that people don’t make choices that have bad outcomes. For instance, a spill of oil over here, whatever it might be, purposefully. But if leaders in businesses were including social and environmental criteria in their decision-making, then we would be making better decisions and wouldn’t that all be swell? So I should go to business school and figure out what that means. That’s what I did. That’s what brought me to business school.

John: Got it. Then when you got out of business school, what was your thinking then on how to make the next right logical step?

Kate: Well, that was year that fortune Magazine had Walmart on the cover and said, Lee Scott’s going to save the world.

John: I remember.

Kate: I can still picture it. I imagine that [crosstalk] there was a very iconic image. Actually, I spoke to Walmart for a little while. They didn’t have any job opportunities. I spoke with Target and through that process I was just very clear about what it was that I wanted to do. Ultimately, they created the job for me and hired me out of business school. So I started the program, the strategy, the team at Target. I was there for about eight years. In that time period, as you do, you grow the team, you redo the strategy a couple of times. I loved my time at Target. It’s still a very soft spot in my heart.

John: What was your title there?

Kate: Multiple. It started out as manager, and I was a director when I left.

John: Got it. But it was in the sustainability sector?

Kate: Yes, it was sustainability the whole way.

John: Basically, you had the proverbial white page in front of you and you were creating from scratch.

Kate: I did. In fact, it was an actual white page. Complete blank.

John: Got it.

Kate: Not to do Target disservice, there was certainly efforts prior but not a sustainability program as such.

John: Understood.

Kate: Yeah. [Crosstalk] That’s actually been the story of my time. So loved my time at Target. Also thought it was the right time to move on. I was there for eight years. Mass retail, lot of product categories. I decided that what I wanted to do was go a little bit narrower and look for a variety of different aspects. So from there, I moved to CNA, which is an apparel retailer based in Brussels within Belgium. So I hopped the pond over to Europe. I led the global sustainability teams there. So Brazil, Mexico, China, and Europe. It’s a smaller private family-owned company. So really a different bent in the business model in terms of how a lot of things work, much narrower to the apparel sector. So was able to go deeper into the supply chain, really understand what those issues are, and develop some expertise in that area a little bit more than knowing a little bit about a lot of product categories. From there I jumped to Zalando, which is also in Europe and based in Berlin. It’s the largest online fashion platform in Europe. There, I moved a little bit more into the tech world and into a retail model in that sense. It’s a multi-brand platform which then was my most recent transition, staying with the tech vibe, moving into travel and changing industries. So I’m super excited to be in travel now. We can talk about that ad nauseum. I think it’ll be interesting.

John: What year did you join Booking Holdings?

Kate: January of 2023. So about a year and a half ago. Just over.

John: Got it.

Kate: Yeah.

John: So really, it’s fair to call you a sustainability OG you’ve been doing this a long time, relatively speaking, but then also huge apparel background in terms of apparel and sustainability and now the dotcom technology sustainability. That’s fascinating.

Kate: Yeah. When I started out, like I said, my interest and my passion was really about incorporating social environmental criteria and decision-making. I was like, I think that there’s a lot of good intentions, but our business model, the way that our culture operates, they’re externalities basically. How can we bring them closer into decision-making? Because frankly, the companies or the business models that have gotten us to where we are today, I don’t believe will make us successful in the future. So really looking at our business model, and now I think I would say that my interest even leans more greatly towards industry change and looking at an industry level what the levers are and how we can actually shift and turn the vote of the industries that we operate in.

John: It’s so interesting. Your path is fascinating because I do remember actually a travel legend. His name was Peter Ueberroth. Now, this before your time, Peter made his fortune in the travel agency industry, and then he became the chairman of the 1984 LA Olympics, and ran the first Olympics at a profit. So he became a legend on the nonprofit side, of course on the capitalism side. He became eventually the commissioner of baseball and I got to meet him when he was named chairman of Rebuild LA after what was then called the Rodney King Riots now called the LA Riots. He said to me, something very fascinating, which ties to your career. He actually said, he goes, “John, it’s fun to get a job at 21 and stay till 62 or 63.” But he goes, “What’s even more fun is think about your life in chapters.” He goes, “About every six or seven years,” he goes, “Change, change, change careers, change challenges.” He goes, “Then see what your career looks like.” He goes, “There’s a lot to that and a lot of people have taught me that along the way.” What you’re saying shows that that really has paid dividends because you’ve continually become an expert, not only in sustainability, but in sub-sectors now in industries that are really truly important, that make the world a better place. So it’s like, it’s interesting how people have done that now and done that with massive success.

Kate: Yeah. I hope that the work that I’ve been a part of proves out to be massively successful. One of the challenges, as we all know in the sustainability realm, where timelines are a little bit sometimes not super rewarding for us to see the outcomes.

John: You’re right. I didn’t even know until I was doing the pre-read and the work prior to this podcast with you that you had been at Target and that you started with the White Page. Now Target years later is a client of ours, and they’re doing great work in sustainability, and they’re [crosstalk] what you started there, and they’re continuing to grow it. That just goes, like you said, sometimes you don’t get to see all the results yourself, but your legacy lives on and grows.

Kate: Well, and now that I’ve moved back to Connecticut, if you’re talking about chapters, I’ve just left Europe. My family and I just chose to move back to the US. I’m in the Booking Holdings headquarters in Connecticut. I now get to see Target again from a consumer point of view. I’m very excited, and I can exactly reiterate what you just said, which is, it’s amazing to see the work they’re doing.

John: Talk a little bit about not only your education, so to speak working at different brands and cultures, but also the fact that you grew up in the United States and where we could lovingly say we’ve lagged behind in the circular economy and sustainability comparatively speaking to Europe and some of the other more progressive Asian countries such as South Korea, such as Japan, et cetera. How did that benefit your education and journey and career and knowledge base having now worked in the United States in sustainability and also in Europe in sustainability?

Kate: That is expressly one of my favorite things about the journey that I’ve just explained. I continue to be surprised by it, to be honest. Moving back to the US has been in some small ways a culture shock. In some ways there are things that I expected, but then in other ways, there are things where I think I expect to understand what’s going on and I don’t. So there are some various kind of aspects of that. I did spend about 10 years overseas in Europe. I think one of the most influential, I guess I would say, business-wise, the most influential things that’s been going on over the past 10 years or even just to say the last two years to be fair, is the regulatory scene in Europe. I know we talked about this a little bit before we started out, but I think the regulatory scene in Europe right now from a sustainability perspective even though it’s been maybe two plus years heavy on, and I can tell you my experiences with that, but I think in a macro view, I anticipate and I really do think that what we’re seeing right now will shift the look and feel of sustainability programs in companies for the next 10 years or so. I think there’s a lot of regulations that are coming into play that are affecting companies that are not just based in Europe.

John: Understood.

Kate: So there’s a lot going on.

John: It had to also give you just a broader perspective to sustainability.

Kate: Yeah.

John: That’s [inaudible]

Kate: Well, and then there’s another can of worms, John, do you want to talk about? What is sustainability? How do you define that for a [inaudible] product, or [crosstalk]

John: Yeah, I do want to do that. You came over to Booking, let’s just say 18 or so months ago. Where were they on their journey? Did you have the proverbial white page again, or were they [crosstalk] on the journey?

Kate: Yeah. Booking Holdings is the parent company for the classic in the US. There’s Priceline, Kayak, booking.com, agoda who’s based in Europe, and OpenTable. So those are some of our largest consumer [crosstalk]

John: Big brands.

Kate: Yeah. I’ll say that each of the brands have been in a different spot. So booking.com has really been driving the ship for the travel industry, defining what does sustainable travel look like in the accommodation space. There’s a little bit of a storyline there that we can talk about. Then each of the other brands have had some smaller efforts or participate with that. Booking Holdings itself, I lead the new team, so it is a white page somewhat in that sense. I say somewhat just because there’s a lot to pull on, a lot of activities going on. A lot of great work has been done. The teams have been hard at work in various parts but not pulled together from a group perspective and strategy.

John: That’s so interesting. For our listeners and viewers who’ve just joined us, we’ve got Kate Heiny with us today. She’s the Vice President of sustainability at Booking Holdings. To find Kate and her colleagues and all the important work they’re doing in sustainability, you can go to www.bookingholdings.com. Just to tee up, you mentioned those great brands, priceline, Booking, Kayak, OpenTable, that are underneath the sustainability work you and your colleagues are doing. Just so our listeners and viewers understand a little bit of size and scope, annual revenue for Booking Holdings over 22 billion, over 24,000 employees in 220 countries. It’s a big organization. That’s a big task that you walked into. One of the other things I’m getting here is that during your career, you’ve ratcheted it up. Not only have you switched wonderful brands from Target to the CNA and other great brands you’ve worked for along the way, but you’ve taken on bigger mountains to climb as you’ve gone. Talk a little bit about now the alignment, again, that white page, it’s in front of you, you’ve done it before. So I would assume a little bit of the fear is lessened, but now in a different industry, technology, travel. How’s that first 18 months gone and what’s gone to plan and what’s gone a little bit off script of what you thought it would be?

Kate: What’s gone to plan and what’s gone off script? I like that. I would say you mentioned the fear. I get jazzed by the newness. So fear of failure maybe, but there’s no [crosstalk]

John: We all have.

Kate: Yeah.

John: Yeah. [Crosstalk]

Kate: I like to think that we all have it anyway.

John: Hopefully.

Kate: I think that there’s been some, some pieces. Personally, joining the travel industry has been really meaningful for me. I know that our mission is to make travel accessible and easy for everyone. That is what we all come together to do. I, since joining the industry have fallen in love with the Mark Twain quote. Oh, I wrote it. Travel is fatal to ignorance, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.

John: Wow! That’s true.

Kate: Yeah. So for me, I’m working in an industry that I value highly, and I think offers us as a global community what we need and ways to connect and learn and really have experiences that influence our world. So personally, I’m very excited about this. I would say that things that I’ve learned since joining are the industry itself, I knew it was complex. I think what’s interesting to find out is from a sustainability perspective, it hasn’t been very self-organized. In fact, it has been in pockets but the industry from my and OTA perspective is we sell flights, we sell rental cars, hotel rooms. So we have this variety, but each one of those actually is an industry in and of itself.

John: True.

Kate: So there’s some interesting nuance in terms of the industry and why we might organize and what we want to achieve with that. I know you had Amelia DeLuca on a previous show, for instance. The airline industry itself is doing amazing things, but that’s one piece of our picture. So the industry organization and its early stages in that space for sustainability was a little bit of a surprise. I think to me, I like to look at it as opportunity, but it’s a bit of a surprise.

John: Sure.

Kate: One thing that I am very pleased with seeing and might have been a little bit of a surprise as well, actually, is the transferability of so much of the sustainability work that I’ve been doing, and specifically from the apparel sector.

John: Got it.

Kate: One example is exactly what we just touched on, is the whole like, well, what is sustainable apparel? Or what is a sustainable hotel room, et cetera? We know that travelers or customers, but we know that travelers want to make a sustainable option. Our booking.com research shows that 83% of travelers actually care about sustainability and want to do something. Does it transfer into behavior? We can talk about that in a different point. That’s always the question. But in order to transfer into behavior, we as our organization, need to be able to communicate what is more sustainable about travel choices to them. Can we do that? Well, we did have a badge on booking.com called the Travel Sustainable Badge that was maybe three-plus years in the making and was present on the platform and customers were able to, to leverage that. With our new regulations in Europe, it is no longer compliant with how to communicate about sustainability to customers. So we’re seeing this tricky spot specifically in Europe, but it does bubble over into all these other markets, where I think culturally and from the regulator’s perspective, they understand, and we understand that sustainability is important, that customers want it, that they’re asking for it. But there is a severe lack of alignment, of credibility and of consistency in the communication tools that we do not have. So there’s a very significant gap in being able to provide customers what they’re asking for. That’s the same in the apparel industry as it is in the travel industry.

John: You just bring up some really fascinating points, because really, as you say, you’re dealing with airlines, car rental companies, other modes of transportation as well, trains and others, and also then lodging, hotels. For instance, recently, I know a large rental car company, I believe it was Hertz, returned X amount, 10,000, 15,000 of their EV cars. They had trouble getting traction with the EVs. Are some of the industries more challenging, getting traction as separate industries themselves, whereas lodging people are more interested in and going along with, hey, change my sheets every three nights unless I leave the card on the bed. They’re more excited that, as you talked about Amelia DeLuca, that planes are now not giving out plastic cups and all those things that used to be proforma, but are now legacy habits that are changing because we’re moving from a linear to circular economy and things of that such. How challenging is that dealing? Like you said, in all the different sub-sectors that you cover, including the fact that you’re a technology company? So you’re dealing also with the whole technology revolution and that evolution, which is ongoing now with the advent of AI and robotics and everything else that a technology company has to deal with.

Kate: Yeah.

John: Oh, yeah. There we go.

Kate: Well, there’s a little complexity in this. Actually, while you were talking, I was also thinking back to, and I haven’t spent this much time thinking about my early sustainability days, but in mass retail we did need to look across all product categories and prioritize them and understand from a customer point of view what is more important to me category wise and why, and it’s actually very similar. That’s another way to maybe have one lens on what you’re just asking. So from an OTA’s perspective that does have flights, cars, accommodations and activities, so all of the above. There’s a few different ways that we would need to prioritize those things and say like, is it size of business? Is that where we start? Is it customer interest? Is that where we start? Is it actual accessibility of information? Is that where we start? I can tell you that within the booking.com lens, we certainly started with accommodations because that’s where we were seeing interest. That is a very big size of the business. But I would say in the past few years, including this regulatory redirect, there’s actually, I would say more energy in an industry perspective on the flight emissions information and what is able to be shared there. So the travel impact model, the TIM is a model that has been, you know developed within set of industry partners and is a way to actually measure consistently the flight emissions and be able to communicate that across industry. I think that by no means would I say that that is easy, but when you look at flight emissions, that is one or a small set of metrics that we would be looking at versus an accommodation where you talked about is it about changing your sheets? Is it about plastic straws? Is it about energy efficiency in the building? There’s different reasons for identifying different parts of the industry to go after first or where to prioritize that.

John: Going back to that, when I called you the sustainability OG, it was only with mad props and of course, great admiration, but that also gives you tremendous perspective back when, let’s just call it 15 to 20 years ago, sustainability, when the C-Suite heard that it equaled it’s going to cost us money. It wasn’t about creating a more resilient organization, creating more profit channels, and all the other things. Creating a stickier business with regards to recruiting and retaining employees. Now that you’ve seen that entire arc, and so have I, what does sustainability look like to you? Because now you’ve done sustainability from that proverbial white page, and now you, and I know we have this alphabet soup that’s also got thrown into sustainability. Arguably cybersecurity’s been thrown in there, DEI, ESG as you’ve called it, the regulatory patchwork wilt that you have to deal with, given that you operate in over 220 countries around the world. As you talked about the EU’s rise of regulations, we also know what’s going on here with Gary Gensler and the SEC and other things as well here. How do you then prioritize knowing that the world is now moving finally from a linear to circular economy and people care about ESG, people care about diversity, equity, and inclusion. The alls can be very important depending on whose lens you’re looking at them through. How do you do that delicate high wire act and balancing act of bringing that all those important elements into your organization, but then nurturing them where they need to be nurtured without taking away from the greater mission.

Kate: Yeah. You clearly have experience in this.

John: A little bit.

Kate: I love your description. Your description is just spot on, right.

John: A little bit.

Kate: It is a high-wire act, I think that’s completely fair, nurturing different pieces in order to help prop up over when this is out of focus, all of that I agree. I think what’s really struck me this year, and I find it to be a good challenge to my thinking, is this corporate sustainability reporting directive, and that’s the EU’s disclosure regulation. They have a new disclosure regulation that actually is an evolution of what was previously the non-financial reporting directive, et cetera. Their goal is to bring, I guess, to use the American terminology, to bring SOX-like levels of control to non-financial, so environmental, social governance reporting. I think that it’s a massive undertaking. Many, and I don’t know, because the first deadline has not come to pass, but many US-based companies will actually fall under this or get captured within this regulation. So we are preparing for what our disclosure looks like. In doing that, we have a framework and a standard that is prescribing to us what needs to be measured and communicated based on some of our own choices. I think that will only strengthen our foundation. I am truly excited about the possibility and the likelihood, I will make it a likelihood, that we will get data and good quality data from around the business in areas where we’ve needed it in the past and not been able to get it. I think that having that and getting those connections will allow us to, from a sustainability perspective, ramp up or reframe what our aspirations are because this will bring up the floor within the industry, well, multiple industries. It’s not industry. It is industry agnostic. Excuse me.

John: Are you really referring to then the force transparency that these regulations then create both for your upstream and downstream vendors? Which now you can then bring that transparency in-house when you do your reporting, which then when you report on scope one, two, and three, create real radical transparency that your investors and client base are looking for?

Kate: There is that, yes. But in addition to that, it also dictates what companies actually have to disclose.

John: Understood.

Kate: I think it forces a discussion on materiality that prescribes environmental and social issues being part of the discussion. Whereas in the past, I think organizations have had the option to not include externality-type topics. So GHG emissions, for instance are now being pulled into what we have to disclose and at an assured and then at a reasonable assurance level by a certain date. So it’s really ramping up not only the number of metrics, the scope, but also the credibility.

John: I totally agree with you. I’m all in that that kind of regulation then creates a new reality that is going to [crosstalk]

Kate: That’s way to say it. Yes.

John: Yeah. A new reality. But let’s go back to that issue then. How do you not go cuckoo dealing with how harmonized is Gensler going to be with what just came out there and Latam and then Asia, and then the UAE. How do you look at that then?

Kate: Well, at the moment as we understand the CSRD, the European regulation is actually broader and more encompassing than any of the others. So, for organizations that have to report there, then we believe that we will be able to carve off the pieces to the other authorities as required.

John: Got it.

Kate: But all of that remains to be seen. I might still go cuckoo, I might already be cuckoo from doing [crosstalk], my job.

John: But as you said, there’s some TBD to happen here still. There’s some TBD. At Booking Holdings as we mentioned earlier, Priceline, Kayak, there’s OpenTable, these are some of the greatest travel brands on the planet. Talk a little bit about, without giving away your secrets, what’s some of your secret sauce in terms of your tool, strategies, and innovations that allow you to better drive more sustainable travel than any of your competition out there?

Kate: I think right now, what I would say is, at Booking.com, we have, I think it’s nine years running now. A sustainable travel report where we ask travelers a suite of questions. We have a very rich set of insights from travelers over the past nine years. That’s just one study that we do. We also have a very cool, one coming up in the next month or so related to that say do gap, the attitude, behavior gap. I would love to be able to share with you when it comes out.

John: Yeah.

Kate: I think research is one of these tools. Research that is open to the public that is available, that helps to elevate people’s knowledge on what our travelers are asking for, what they’re looking at, how they’re prioritizing issues as well. I think at Kayak, the team did a very cool piece of research also on cities and the healthiest or the most sustainable cities. So the research muscle, I guess I would say, is strong and one where we are looking to contribute to industry knowledge in order to be able to help everyone benefit from this information to help travelers.

John: Actionable BI. Business intelligence is really what [inaudible]

Kate: That’s fair.

John: That’s fair. You’ve been at this now 18 months, but you’ve been at sustainability a lot longer. What are some of the challenges you didn’t expect that you’re still working on you. When you go to bed at night, you’re still rolling around in your mind thinking, how are we going to do this one? This one’s big. How are we going to do this and do it right?

Kate: Well, right now my brain is all CSRD all the time with that regulation. But this is a point in time. Like I said, I trust that this will help us all with raising the floor in terms of sustainability, information, et cetera. I would say within the travel industry, what is sustainable travel is still a cloud that causes me a lot of anxiety. But the other bit is how can we organize in a manner that helps us go further faster? How can we create focus? Because I think you’re also well familiar with a lot of efforts. In the apparel industry, for instance, there were a lot of various groups for the past 20 years that have been working on different aspects of sustainability or one small bit, or going this direction when everyone else is going this way. The alignment and the focus of an industry can really help us make significant change, meaningful change and faster. So within the travel space, I think we have yet to have something that answers that.

John: Well, let’s talk about your parallel experiences, Sustainable Apparel Coalition. You’ve been very involved with Global Sustainable Tourism Council, you’re very involved with. Like you said, pooling information and sharing best practices helps us all go further faster. Where are the disconnects that you see and where can we get better since you’ve been in both?

Kate: Yeah. I think that very specifically, and actually both of those are good examples literally defining what sustainable travel is, which SAC was defining what sustainable apparel is. There’s no alignment. Not to beat the drum too much here, but now with the EU regulations around the green claims directive coming, the empowering consumers for the green transition, multiple regulations on this right now we are hearing a lot of, no, don’t do this but very little move towards this. So what we all need to move towards, we still have yet to align on and speed forward towards.

John: Interesting. With regard [crosstalk]

Kate: A lot of opportunity.

John: Yeah. Obviously. No, you and I were in an elevator together, and you told me you’re the vice president of sustainability of Booking Holdings. So I say out of 100 people that come on any of your great platforms, Priceline, Kayak, OpenTable, booking.com, out of 100 people, how many from your business intelligence are interested in some form of sustainability doing something more sustainable than they historically did when the travel days 30 years ago were just, I want to get from point A to point B and just go have a good time at that place.

Kate: Well, our booking.com research shows that 83% of travelers care about sustainability and are looking for sustainability efforts.

John: Then as your intelligence goes on, then everyone has different levels of how much they care and about what they care about.

Kate: Exactly.

John: Understood.

Kate: Then it becomes a scattershot. Yes.

John: Right. Since you’ve joined now, you guys put out a sustainability or an impact report, or what’s your report called annually?

Kate: The annual sustainability report.

John: Got it. When does it get published, typically? When does it get publish?

Kate: April.

John: April

Kate: Yeah.

John: Then that lives in perpetuity on bookingholdings.com?

Kate: Yes, it does.

John: Got it. The balancing act though of this scope one, scope two, scope three, net zero, is that relevant to talk about anymore or more the regulations, more interesting and relevant to talk about? Or is there some happy mix that you toggle between when it comes to regulations versus let’s get there further faster, get our own house in order? How does that work?

Kate: I think net zero is still relevant. We have net-zero targets. Thank you for asking. So we plan to be net zero by 2040 [crosstalk] which is 10 years before the 2050 deadline.

John: That’s great. Sure.

Kate: I have to say, it’s going to be a big challenge. So it’s very relevant to talk about. We talk about it daily within the business. We have a plan to get to net zero, but we also have a lot of open questions. There’s a lot of open questions where there’s technology that’s missing today where there’s maybe partnerships that haven’t been developed yet. So it’s going to be a heavy lift to get there.

John: Interesting. What I would love to do, some brands have been on the show five times, some seven times, some three times. Obviously, Kate, I’m going to want you to come back and Kate, to come back here and keep sharing the journey, because as you and I know, sustainability has no darn finish line. It’s just a big journey. Where do you want to go? Where do you want to take this in the next year that you’re excited about? Because we got to show results even just to ourselves to get excited and get out of bed every day. How does the next year look? How does the next two years look? How does the next three years look? How far do you plan? You remain excited and you can stay hopeful.

Kate: Yeah. I think I have in my mind a few things. So one is this quote that I shared with you from Mark Twain. Right?

John: I love that. I love that quote.

Kate: It really drives me the importance of travel and the value that travel brings. So I think that that is certainly not a programmatic goal, but that is something that drives me and keeps me excited about finding a way for our industry to further advance sustainable travel. Because if our commitment organizationally is to make it easy for everyone to experience the world, we need to have a world worth experiencing. So how are we going to get there? What are we going to do? That’s my frame of reference in terms of how are we able to empower travelers to do that, to do what they say they want to do? So those are maybe the North Star or the inspiration that I think about. Then there’s of course, milestones along the way. Regulation is onerous, it is difficult, it is sometimes frustrating, but it is also something that we have to do. Because of that, I will choose to do it in a way that will be productive for us and actually accelerate our sustainability work.

John: I didn’t have these pieces of art behind me, they weren’t made for Zoom or for Covid or anything. These have always been on my walls. It’s my wife there. These are my children, they’re now 37 and 31. If you were to meet my children today as adults who are both married and I said to you, Kate, you’re not only a sustainability Rockstar, but you’re also now a travel expert and you have a lot of information on travel and you’ve also lived on different continents. Where would you tell them to go if they’ve never been before? Like you’d say, have you both been to here? Because if you haven’t, you got to go there.

Kate: That’s a toughie.

John: I’m going to turn it also to the tables before you answer that. Kate, where do you want to go that you’ve never been? One place that you’ve never been before?

Kate: Okay. I would recommend, because I love it, that’s the best reason I can [crosstalk] is the Nordics.

John: Really?

Kate: So, Sweden, Norway, Finland. Love them.

John: They’ve never been there so I’ll recommend that. Thank you.

Kate: Absolutely. There’s a beautiful mix of city and nature. There is an inherent value of sustainability within the culture, and I’m sure it comes from limited resources. There’s a lot of history there, but all of that comes through when you visit, so highly recommend that. In terms of where I would go, there are so many places. I will only choose the first one that comes to mind.

John: Okay. That’s cool.

Kate: Patagonia.

John: Where?

Kate: Patagonia.

John: Really. That’s interesting.

Kate: I like trekking. I love the outdoors. I’ve not been to that part of the world, and I would really love the experience.

John: Kate, I call what you do, one of the coolest fraternities in the world. Sustainability leaders are just some of the greatest people because they’ve become my friends and also, I got to interview so many of them over the years, and they’re truly making the world a better place. Where do you look for inspiration as you are in a very important leadership role in what you do? And it’s important to always stay inspired ourselves. Where do you look for inspiration, both inside of your industry and outside of your industry to continue the great and important work that you continue to do as a leader?

Kate: It’s a good question. I look for inspiration and I get it, but I look for inspiration from peers, from people that I’ve known for many years, or just watched from afar. As you’ve rightly pointed out, I’ve been around the block a little bit, so there are leaders that I have followed their careers or people that I know and see how they are evolving that give me a lot of inspiration and support. I would also say that my team, I don’t know if that sounds a little hokey, but the folks that are still maybe some are newer to the sustainability, some are just newer in their career, but there’s a lot of value in having your thinking challenged. Really inspires me and helps me to try and stay on my toes a little bit when asked why we might do something. So I have inspiration from both of those areas and others but that’s what comes to mind.

John: I totally get it. Who’s doing some cool things in sustainability now? Has nothing to do with travel, when you’re standing back saying, wow. Who’s doing some cool things right now in sustainability, that if you weren’t doing exactly what you’re doing, you would love to be working with them, doing what they’re doing?

Kate: Boy, because I’m new to travel, I’m so travel-focused at the moment, I haven’t had a chance to look outside. There’s lots of great things going on in the travel industry. Like I mentioned Amelia earlier, I know that all the airlines but Delta, United American are heavily working on all the sustainable aviation fuel. I think that it’s amazing to see the work that’s being done in there because of the size of the challenge and the size of the solutions right now. What that’s going to take to get there is the innovation, the work that needs to be done is really incredible. So I’m very impressed with that.

John: Inside the 24,000 people, how many are green ambassadors or sustainability ambassadors inside of your organization? How do you build culture in and around sustainability? Are they spread around all 220 countries? Are they predominantly in North America? How spread out and as to your point of getting challenged, where are you getting fresh ideas from how many people around the world?

Kate: Yeah, that’s a great question. I wouldn’t say that we have today a robust network set up. So I couldn’t give you a number, but if I had to, I’d say maybe 100 to a couple of 100. But we don’t have an organized structure for that at the moment. [Crosstalk] But we’ll come back on and tell you about it when we do.

John: Yeah. That’s [crosstalk]

Kate: We are getting a lot of challenges because half of my team sits in Amsterdam at the booking.com offices. So the volunteer network that is there is very active and raising up a number of questions. So specifically, that’s where we’re getting a lot of them right now.

John: How’s it to be home in Connecticut?

Kate: Very different and beautiful. We live in the woods. Haven’t done that since I left my parents’ house so it’s a number of years ago. [Crosstalk] So nice to be out of a city for a change.

John: That’s so great. Well, like I said earlier, Kate, you’re always welcome back on the show. You don’t have to come back on for an hour. You could come back on for a short period just to talk about a new report as you were talking about earlier, new intelligence that your brands are creating on a regular basis, or just any new developments that you’d love. Because as you and I know, sustainability, we have a long way to go. It’s just a darn journey, and we’re all on it together to really do great things. But for our listeners and viewers, to find Kate and all the important work she’s doing with her colleagues at Booking Holdings, please go to www.bookingholdings.com. Kate Heiny, you are just a delight. You really are a sustainability OG, but more important, a sustainability Rockstar. I’m only grateful for the time you spent with us today, more important, I’m grateful for all the important work you’ve done to make the world a better place. Thank you again for all that you do.

Kate: Well, thank you, John. Thanks for the invitation, and thank you for all that you do. You’ve been a huge contributor yourself, so it was a pleasure to speak with you.

John: Thank you. This edition of the Impact Podcast is brought to you by Engage. Engage is a digital booking platform revolutionizing the talent booking industry. With thousands of athletes, celebrities, entrepreneurs, and business leaders, Engage is the go-to spot for booking talent, for speeches, custom experiences, live streams, and much more. For more information on Engage or to book talent today, visit letsengage.com. This edition of the Impact Podcast is brought to you by ERI. ERI has a mission to protect people, the planet, and your privacy, and is the largest fully integrated IT and electronics asset disposition provider and cybersecurity-focused hardware destruction company in the United States and maybe even the world. For more information on how ERI can help your business properly dispose of outdated electronic hardware devices, please visit eridirect.com.

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