Turning Words into Actions

The evolution of corporations’ strategies to limit the carbon emissions generated by their business travel is continuing even as post-pandemic volume recovers, and buyers throughout the world are analyzing, developing and deploying multifaceted approaches to meet corporate goals.

That’s the conclusion of a fresh survey of corporate travel buyers, managers and procurement executives conducted in May by BTN, which builds upon research conducted two years ago to illustrate what appears to be a continuing—accelerating, maybe—global drive to cut travel-related emissions.

The BTN research and editorial series offers case studies that underscore the varied approaches companies are taking to achieve that goal. The discipline continues to mature. Hardly a one-size-fits-all process, companies have many options to analyze in determining the best path to achieve their sustainability goals.

However those organizations choose to proceed, BTN’s survey shows that the majority of them are in fact proceeding, regardless of company size, industry or location.

Laying the Foundation

Corporate efforts to reduce travel emissions typically are backed by an overall effort to reduce emissions in other manners throughout the organization; it’s less usual to have the former as a standalone process without the latter. Of the respondents to BTN’s 2023 survey, only 27 percent indicated that their organization never has had an overall corporate emissions-reduction target. That’s down from 35 percent two years ago. (Another 7 percent this year didn’t know if their companies had such a strategy, and that’s down too, from 12 percent in 2021.)

Of those who said their companies had no such target, nearly 60 percent indicated they were considering setting one. Of all 2023 respondents, 32 percent indicated those targets have increased in the past 12 months and 31 percent noted they’d stayed the same, compared with 36 percent and 15 percent in 2021.

When asked whether the priority level their organizations had held for travel sustainability issues had changed in the prior 12 months, 44 percent of 2023 respondents indicated it had become a higher priority, while 6 percent suggested it was lower, compared with 50 percent and 8 percent, respectively in 2021.

Taking Action

Even among those companies for which travel emissions reduction is high priority, the corporate travel department doesn’t often act as an island in developing and deploying strategy, as many companies have developed cross-functional organizational task forces to address the issue, with some larger companies especially hiring sustainability executives to lead the process. Still, in many organizations, the travel manager remains a part of that process: About 57 percent of 2023 respondents indicated they had been formally tasked with assessing or mitigating travel emissions, up from 52 percent in 2021.

The list of specific actions those travel managers have taken to analyze or reduce emissions is varied and goes beyond simply taking steps to reduce travel (although 43 percent of 2023 respondents indicated they’ve been tasked with precisely that).

About 64 percent are collecting emissions data, while 45 percent are charged with modifying their travelers’ booking behavior. About 22 percent are charged with exploring options like sustainable aviation fuel, carbon sequestration or other options, while about one in five each are tasked with exploring supplier partnerships around emissions and with carbon offset providers.

The question of cutting travel to meet carbon goals remains a sticky one. It’s true that the most direct way of limiting emissions is to simply not travel, but with the homebound Covid era a bad memory for many and some executives embracing the return of face-to-face business, it can be a tough sell.

According to the 2023 survey, 19 percent of respondents indicated their organizations had changed travel policies or approval thresholds to meet corporate emissions goals, about the same as the 2021 figure. Similarly, 35 percent of 2023 respondents indicated their companies would reduce travel in the future for sustainability reasons, with another 26 percent projecting they would do so for other reasons.

Supplier Strategies

For some organizations, sustainability goals are pursued not only through internal processes but also through their organizations’ partners in the supply chain. Including requests for specifics about sustainable practices has become commonplace in travel supplier requests for proposals, although the questions asked and information sought vary.

About 66 percent of 2023 respondents indicate that they ask for at least some sustainability information in travel supplier RFPs, compared with 55 percent who indicated they did so in 2021. (The latter figure has a much higher share of respondents who didn’t know.)

What happens with that information remains in flux generally—most buyers have acknowledged sustainability doesn’t outweigh cost or location when determining which suppliers will be selected to join a travel program. But 20 percent of 2023 respondents indicated information on sustainable practices “significantly factors” into supplier selection, while another 42 percent said it could break a tie between evenly matched vendors.