Empowering Nonprofits: Goodwings & TechSoup's journey to lower the climate impact of travel

Who is TechSoup?

TechSoup is a global network of nonprofits, providing technical support and technological tools to nonprofits. 

How it works: Techsoup provides a marketplace for nonprofits, with a wide range of businesses offering their services at a discount. Offering everything from data services to educational resources and technology solutions, Goodwings is one of many businesses in the Techsoup network, supporting the important work of nonprofits. 

Supporting the important work of Nonprofits

NGO’s need to interact with the communities, people and environments that they are supporting, which means they need to travel. At the same time, NGO’s are experiencing the consequences of climate change first hand. Migration challenges, food security issues, environmental justice situations and social inequalities are all current issues that nonprofits are working to resolve, which are exacerbated because of climate change.

We want to support the great work that nonprofits do as much as possible, and that includes supporting them in their effort to travel more responsibly, and reduce the carbon footprint from their necessary travel.

An all-in-one travel management and climate reporting platform

Our integrated carbon calculator helps Nonprofit organisations calculate their travel emissions while they book travel for field work, conferences, events and more. This saves a lot of time and working hours, otherwise spent on collecting and calculating travel info.

No funds for CO2 reductions and removal? No problem

We know that nonprofits have a lot of budget restrictions, and are prioritizing on creating the biggest impact with the resources they have. That means that not a lot of Nonprofits have money to spend on reducing and removing their carbon footprint. We have decided to fund the reduction and removal of our customers’ carbon footprint - including any nonprofit that books their travel on Goodwings. 

Here's how it works: 

1. Book your upcoming travel on Goodwings, and we will calculate your full trip emissions, helping you assess the full climate impact of your travel choices.
   
   
2. We use the booking revenues to purchase biofuel on your company’s behalf, removing any remaining emissions with nature-based removal offsets.
   
   
3. Goodwings gives you access to all your travel emissions data and transaction reports in one place, as well as a dashboard with a full overview of all your organisation’s travel emissions.
   
   
   
   
   
   

   Navigating the Paradox of Travel: How NGOs are Finding Solutions to Make Global Impact Sustainable NGOs around the world face a common challenge - their work often supports people and communities facing issues such as displacement and food insecurity, which are directly caused or exacerbated by climate change. And yet they have to travel long distances to be on the ground to do the critical work they do. While it’s often important for them to be physically present, traveling to these locations only contributes to the problem they’re trying to solve because it emits harmful CO2 emissions.  Goodwings' full-feature travel management system solves 5 key issues for NGOs:    Ensures compliance  To ensure the responsible and efficient use of donor funds, NGOs need to establish an efficient travel program to support this effort. This keeps them transparent and accountable for their travel spending, but also provides a robust set of travel policies for employees to stick to when they’re booking and managing their travel.  Reduces climate impact To make sure that travel doesn’t further contribute to the problem of global warming, Goodwings helps NGOs account for and reduce their travel emissions at no extra cost. This is a significant benefit for NGOs because it means they don’t need to designate a specific sustainability budget for their travel emissions, but can still reduce the impact of their trips.  Saves money   NGOs have a responsibility to make the most of the funds they have and to ensure the money goes to the right places. Paying over the odds for flights, hotels, and other transportation options is not a good use of donor funds, and is entirely avoidable. Goodwings helps NGOs source the best travel options at the best rates, saving money for the right things.   Ensures Duty of Care With employees or volunteers required to travel to remote or unstable locations around the world, NGOs have a “duty of care” responsibility to make sure that their employees are kept safe at all times, and that they are alerted to any dangers that may arise during the trip.