Caribbean cruises as rewards for top workers: Pinnacle of employee recognition or ‘carbon bomb’?

Bank ‘carbon bomb’ cruises may signal need for mindset shift about employee recognition trips in corporate Canada, to better align corporate values with corporate actions.

Canada’s biggest bank, RBC, and other lenders may want to reconsider how they reward top performing employees with air travel and luxury cruises, critics say.

That’s because such trips generate significant carbon emissions, which critics, including others in the financial sector, say are at odds with many banks stated climate goals.

Fifteen hundred top performers from RBC were flown to the Caribbean in January on an eight-night all-inclusive luxury cruise aboard a large ship, according to social media posts by participating bank employees.

The cruises are considered the “pinnacle of employee recognition” for RBC staff from around the world, a now retired RBC regional president said in a LinkedIn posting in 2019.

But such employee recognition programs are also triggering discussion and debate among environmentalists, corporate trip planners and top investment bankers.

Richard Brooks, of Stand.earth, whose non-profit group tracks the climate bona fides of the country’s big banks, likens the RBC flights and at-sea voyage to “a carbon bomb cruise.”

RBC declined to comment on that suggestion, but said cruises are “an important way for RBC to recognize and reward a select number of employees whose efforts have made an exemplary and positive impact for our clients, communities and colleagues during the past year.”