Sam Gilliland
Chairman and CEO, Sabre Holdings
Sam Gilliland was named CEO of Sabre Holdings after working in several senior management positions with the company. The organization supports travelers, travel agents, corporations and travel suppliers through its companies: Travelocity, Sabre Travel Network and Sabre Airline Solutions. Based in Southlake, Texas, the company has approximately 9,000 employees in 59 countries.
Departments
Take 5
More Than A Fashion
Sabre Holdings CEO Sam Gilliland shares his vision on corporate and environmental responsibility.
1. Manage sustainability as a business strategy, not as a fad or a fashion.
Real change comes from strategic long-term thinking, and real results come from initiatives that are embedded into your business. Sustainability helps transform your business for the long term by delivering ongoing value to your customers, doing so responsibly and making smarter, more efficient use of the resources you have at hand. It just makes good business sense to have a sustainability strategy in place.
2. Authenticity matters.
You have to really believe in what you are doing and ensure that your own efforts support what you are promoting externally. Authenticity will make a positive impact on your employees and your customers and ultimately will help you implement, grow and innovate around your sustainability efforts. For real change to begin, it takes an authentic commitment to becoming a more sustainable business.
3. Access to relevant, timely data makes a difference.
You have heard the old adage "You can't manage what you can't measure." Sabre Holdings recently introduced a product that lets our customers actively manage the carbon emissions associated with their corporate travel (air, hotel, rent-a-car) by providing them a three-year historic report as well as a preview of what they have booked for the next 331 days. Customers use this relevant, real-time data to track carbon emission trends in travel in order to make choices that are smarter, more responsible and more efficient.
4. Employees are your most precious "natural" resource.
Employees care about working for a company that cares, and they care about the long-term success of the business. Employees are your best viral marketers for sustainability; in fact, our employees have identified some of the finest opportunities to get engaged in our communities and make the greatest environmental impact.
5. Sustainability is a long, exciting road.
This year you may be focused on energy efficiency and calculating your environmental footprint. Then you may be looking at sustainable packaging or purchasing. Sustainability is not something we can achieve overnight; it is an ongoing process that will continue to evolve. As more and more sustainable resources become available, our businesses will adapt and begin to implement those. The exciting part of all of this is seeing rapid and really smart business innovation. Just learning about what other companies are doing makes me excited about what we can do and how we can share our best practices to help others get started on the sustainability journey.
