What began as a conversation about easyJet Holidays' sustainability ideas and ambitions a year prior became an opportunity for joint exploration through the establishment of a new kind of research lab at the University of Oxford. The first cohort of 20 student Fellows joined the Lab in January 2022. They were given access to a newly designed 17-week training programme, and the opportunity to work collaboratively with easyJet Holidays on progressing its commitment to advance the UN SDGs in the area of sustainable tourism.
Why was a change needed?
Building a new arm of a business is never without its challenges and developing easyJet Holidays during the Covid pandemic presented unprecedented obstacles – but opportunities too. Matt, who has board-level accountability for sustainability, was considering how to ensure easyJet Holidays' approach to sustainable tourism was both meaningful and celebrated travel as an enriching experience for all. And then the unthinkable happened – millions of flights were grounded at the height of the pandemic. Suddenly, there was a shift away from conversations on possible 'antidotes to over-tourism' and the spread of 'greenwashing' towards a more pressing concern: how to tackle the travel industry's recovery?
The pandemic turned everything on its head. Because of the unprecedented circumstances there are also these unique opportunities. Now, we're looking at what are the opportunities to help the recovery of the industry and make some of our key destinations more resilient for the future.
Matt knew he had access to great contacts already working within the company with decades of experience in travel across multiple destinations. But he wanted the new business to avoid the temptation to be too narrow in its thinking.
How did you go about making a change?
This is where the 'vision of Adam and the Forward Institute team to bring together an 800-year-old academic institution and what was at the time a two-year-old digital travel company' came into play.
On paper, these are two very separate worlds that apply very different lenses to the ways in which they operate. Both Matt and Ed admit that it would have been very easy to dismiss pairing the two of them together! However, early conversations around easyJet Holidays' ideas for its sustainability strategy and ways in which the University of Oxford is seeking to develop its graduate training opportunities and interaction with other partners quickly grew into tangible opportunities.
A 17-week training program was developed, which goes through different aspects of what they think Oxford students need to connect their research to impact, using the framework of the SDGs as the context for change. This framework highlights important areas for change and many businesses are using it to think about their sustainability policies. The Oxford SDG Impact Lab has delivered the content as well as bringing in world-class guest speakers on three main headings – ethics, evidence and engagement – to pose and stimulate engaged conversation around purpose, values and leadership.
“The Oxford SDG Impact Lab offers a unique blend of academic research skills and practical skills such as project management and leadership, which allows its fellows to make tangible real-world impacts. I’m really excited to put these elements into practice.” – Ruby-Ann Birin, Oxford SDG Impact Lab Fellow 2022.
Trust is a really big factor for this partnership. Matt has been really open to being practically involved in sessions that involve open two-way discussions, where the students can ask him challenging questions. This has had a significant impact in helping students engage with business in a way that has challenged some preconceived stereotypes around profitable businesses being genuinely open to change.
The Lab has brought together deep industry expertise with some of the brightest minds from the UK and a diverse range of other countries. Participating students come from a wide range of disciplines and very different backgrounds, bringing many different lived experiences and perspectives to the work.
What have been the outcomes of the change?
This fusion of different disciplines and perspectives is already producing hugely distinct thoughts and ideas that are challenging and stretching easyJet Holidays as an organisation. It's been really rewarding to follow the evolution of those ideas from early conversations through to the initial 20 pitches that there were then refined down to seven different working groups.
Matt has already seen the benefit of exposing easyJet Holidays to the cognitive diversity that the students bring. They’re pushing the company to think about things through completely different lenses and angles.
These are perspectives that we don't have within our business. And for us, it's all about getting to the right answer.
The next step is testing those ideas to see if they drive change in the real world, which is what the Lab is all about – fostering research that has impact. Students have the chance to research their ideas, then take them into the field, working closely with easyJet Holidays’ staff and local stakeholders to develop them further. It's a unique opportunity to 'transition from the theoretical and conceptual into reality' and probably one of the biggest learning opportunities that the students will have. The result has been seven project reports, many of which easyJet Holidays is now looking to implement as part of their commitment to the SDGs.
This collaboration Lab is not only stretching easyJet holidays as a company, it is setting the bar for the whole industry and then inviting the industry to follow as well as evolving the way in which the University of Oxford works together with external partners to advance the SDGs. There is great potential for the Lab to increase its impact, both nationally and internationally, by developing partnerships with other organisations and businesses. Combining these partners with first-class academic research for impact that moves us closer towards the SDGs, across a variety of sectors, would create a strong legacy that both easyJet Holidays and the University of Oxford can be very proud of.
What did you learn?
Matt and Ed had to learn how to navigate the cultures of two very different organisations in getting the Lab off the ground. Bringing together a new business that is used to moving at great pace with an 800-year-old academic institution to set up an entirely new organisation within the university within a matter of months was always going to present challenges. Navigating different legal teams, setting up a physical Lab space and getting student recruitment underway, all had to happen extremely quickly. Finding key people with influence within the university was paramount to working through these areas.
Together, Ed and Matt engaged others in the project, and invested time in building supportive relationships. Since pairing up, they’ve have also spent a considerable amount of time thinking about the idea of complexity and the ways in which universities and companies approach this.
As Ed explains: “Universities love complexity, but in a certain kind of way. We take a complex problem and go 'let's go really deep, exploring and understanding it as rigorously as we can’. But that takes time and so research is sometimes not as quickly connected as it might be to the context in which the complexity exists and problems that need to be addressed in the present.”
In contrast, a big part of a commercial company’s culture is moving at speed and the tendency to test and then move on to the next thing. By working with the Lab, Matt’s learning has been “to be comfortable being uncomfortable and bring an open mind. Go with it and see where things could take you”.
Any final thoughts?
You have to really believe in the change you are defining to be able to drive that change and you have to be willing to invest the time and effort to move things forward.
For Matt and Ed that has meant late nights at the Lab while maintaining the busy schedule of their day jobs. They’ve relished the opportunity because they get to harness “the buzz of being in the Lab on a Monday evening, being with the students, hearing their questions and their challenges, pushing easyJet Holidays outside of its comfort zone”. Moreover, as the Lab’s first year comes to a successful close, there’s huge satisfaction in seeing the first set of ideas actually coming to fruition in impactful projects that will lead to change.