Specialist TMC Diversity Travel has introduced a series of sustainability features to its proprietary online booking tool.

The UK-based company, which serves the humanitarian, academic, faith and NGO sectors, has added air-to-rail switching functionality, carbon offsetting capabilities and sustainable hotel filtering to the booking portal.

When users of Diversity¡¯s OBT are searching for a flight they can now click a button to show the equivalent journey by rail. Search results are then returned for the same routes and dates to allow travellers to compare times, carbon emissions and prices between the plane and train.

Another upgrade allows clients to calculate their business travel carbon emissions using the DEFRA methodology or that of sustainability specialist Thrust Carbon.

Clients can then mitigate these emissions through offsetting options being offered by Diversity¡¯s partners Carbon Footprint and Anthesis. They can also use their own offset partner if preferred.

Other improvements include filtering searches for more sustainable hotels. Diversity Travel is using Thrust Carbon¡¯s Hotel Sustainability Index for this process, which gives every hotel a ranking between 1 and 100 based on their sustainability credentials, including reported carbon emissions, sustainability initiatives and applicable certifications.

Diversity has developed its own inhouse OBT, with flight search capability provided by Travelport. More upgrades to the tool are expected later this year.

The introduction of the new sustainability features was overseen by Diversity¡¯s chief technical officer Joanne Bowden, who joined the TMC last year.

¡°Our aim is simple - make sustainable travel the default and technology will play a huge role in this,¡± said Bowden. ¡°The updates reflect our long-term commitment to helping our clients reduce the carbon footprint of their trips and to be empowered to make more informed travel decisions.¡±