Our strategy
Our shared purpose “Connecting People. Uniting the World” drives our decision making, supported by our core values – Safety, Caring, Dependability and Efficiency. In action, that means doing the right thing for our planet, our passengers and our people.
We believe in the transformative power of travel. It can lift economies, advance society, open hearts and expand minds. Millions of passengers every year and tons of freight rely on United to connect them to the world.
Our recent brand campaign, “Good Leads the Way,” is the public face of a deeper drive to do the right thing for our customers, employees, communities and planet. Doing so enhances our ability to compete, strengthens our long-term decision-making and keeps us agile to the needs of those on whom we depend on for our success. Ultimately, we believe that managing our responsibilities towards environmental, social and governance issues will help protect and build shareholder value for the long term.
Our approach is built around five pillars, with our Chief Executive Officer accountable for delivery.
How we manage corporate responsibility and ESG
Managing our responsibilities and our impact on environmental, social and governance issues is a key part of our approach to building growth and enhancing financial performance. Our ESG strategy is continuously shaped through priority assessments by our Chief Executive Officer and other senior management with insight, input and oversight from our Board. We actively engage with a diverse group of stakeholders to listen to their concerns related to our financial and ESG performance, and their feedback informs our strategy. As a result of these assessments and conversations, we have announced several bold, quantifiable and time-bound ESG goals. These include pledging to become net zero by reducing our GHG emissions by 100% by 2050 without relying on the use of traditional carbon offsets.
Governance framework
Our governance framework includes direct oversight of our ESG goals, targets, commitments, strategies, initiatives, risks, assessments, disclosures and external engagement by United’s Board of Directors. The Public Responsibility Committee has primary oversight of our ESG initiatives and risks, which includes reviewing and monitoring the development and implementation of our safety and public health, DEI and climate-related strategic goals and objectives as well as periodically assessing our performance against these goals and objectives and other relevant and appropriate ESG, sustainability and corporate responsibility frameworks, metrics, scorecards and rankings. Management is responsible for reviewing, refining and implementing long-term ESG strategy and periodically updates the full Board and its committees, as applicable, on issues related to the implementation of our ESG strategy.
Public engagement
United’s public engagement on climate issues is coordinated through our International Regulatory Affairs and Government Affairs departments to ensure consistency across business divisions and geographies. At the senior executive level, United’s CEO is passionate about environmental sustainability issues and provides leadership in support of our initiatives. Our environmental programs and policies, including environmental sustainability, are overseen by United’s President and the Senior Vice President of Government Affairs and Global Public Policy. United’s Managing Director of Global Environmental Affairs and Sustainability has day-to-day responsibility for environmental and sustainability matters and reports to the Senior Vice President of Government Affairs and Global Public Policy, allowing for even greater synergies and alignment of our lobbying activities with our climate strategy.
Transparency
Transparency through active stakeholder engagement and robust public reporting of our strategy for and performance on climate change topics is essential to our climate strategy, allowing for our various stakeholders to measure our climate change performance and track our progress against our climate goals.
More detail on management of governance over climate issues is available in the TCFD section of this report.