The GBTA Foundation, the charitable arm of the Global Business Travel Association (GBTA), has unveiled findings from its Sustainability Acceleration Challenge, a global benchmarking initiative to evaluate the current state of business travel programs and the actions being taken by organizations to decarbonize them. The findings reveal that organizations have much work to do to accelerate the integration of practices if they are to materially reduce their business travel emissions, in line with corporate net zero targets by 2050.
The GBTA Sustainability Acceleration Global Benchmark, developed in collaboration with Accenture, ranks the current state of climate action on a maturity score of 0 to 5, with 0 denoting “no activity” and 5 denoting “leading practice” action to mitigate business travel emissions. As of 2024, which is the first baseline year for the Challenge, the overall global sustainability maturity score across all industry sectors stands at 1.3. This demonstrates that while some action is being taken and planned, there is an urgent need to turn commitments into real impact. A public-facing, interactive dashboard (“Explore the State of the Industry” tab) provides a comprehensive view across several measures.
The Challenge was conducted in September and October, with 241 companies participating representing an approximate cumulative business travel spend of over $14 billion. The companies completed a maturity assessment, which evaluated their organization’s performance across four categories and 15 action levers related to decarbonizing their business travel programs. The data provided was on a company-level basis, ensuring the carbon reduction efforts of the entire organization were assessed.
The Challenge results were released at the third annual GBTA Sustainability Summit recently held in Copenhagen. Key findings include:
- When it comes to maturity, European and global programs are ahead of the game, scoring 1.7 and 1.6 respectively, compared to North America programs at 1.0 and APAC programs at 0.7
- Finance, consulting and technology sectors scored higher than average (2.0, 1.7, 1.5), while others such as manufacturing (0.8) and transportation/travel services (1.2) lag significantly behind
- The size of the travel program (based on travel spend) is directly related to company sustainability maturity level. Smaller programs (less than $5 million) scored 0.8 on average, compared to large programs (more than $100 million) who scored 2.5
Areas where organizations are trending well:
- Purposeful trips are a key opportunity in travel policies – The No. 1 sustainability practice in travel policies is evaluating the necessity of the trip (79 percent), a policy likely driven by cost considerations and the availability of virtual alternatives. This is closely followed by encouraging or mandating economy class for domestic trips (78 percent).
- Emissions tracking is becoming mainstream – A majority of companies (62 percent) are tracking their business travel emissions, and an additional 14 percent are planning to do so within the next year. Public disclosure and reporting of corporate value chain emissions (scope 3), which includes business travel, is also picking up fast with 49 percent doing so and 14 percent planning to start.
- Science-based validation of external targets – While a small number of companies (20 percent) have external reduction targets for their scope 3 emissions, including business travel, these companies are largely seeking third-party, independent validation of these targets (66 percent), in most cases by SBTi, the Science-Based Targets Initiative (60 percent).
- Point-of-sale features critical to enable sustainable choices – Sixty eight percent of companies have sustainability features included in their corporate travel booking platform, and 22 percent of companies are looking to upgrade or switch to platforms with better sustainability features. The most common features included are carbon calculators for trips, information on more sustainable options, and rail booking availability.
The biggest opportunities to accelerate climate action:
- Creating momentum through employee engagement – Only 32 percent of companies have adopted initiatives to engage their employees in travel sustainability, while 33 percent are planning to, such as training on sustainable travel options, reports showcasing employee/business unit travel emissions, incentives and innovation competitions.
- Sending a stronger, more harmonized demand signal – One third of companies are currently choosing suppliers based on climate criteria, alongside other factors, while 22 percent are planning to. The top considerations are suppliers’ sustainability targets (85 percent) and certifications (80 percent). Standardized procurement criteria are slow to adopt with only 13 percent of companies are already using or planning to use the GBTA Sustainable Procurement Standards, perhaps due to lack of awareness or technological barriers.
- Helping scale the market for SAF – Only 12 percent of companies are currently purchasing Sustainable Aviation Fuel certificates (SAFc) as a way to compensate their business travel emissions within the value chain, spending on average $400,000 annually. However, the practice is set to double over the next year, with 15 percent of companies planning to be on the market for SAFc.
- Establishing carbon budgets and fees – Only 7 percent of companies have established internal carbon fees for their business travel programs while 14 percent have set a carbon budget, with more planning to integrate these practices within a year (17 percent and 20 percent, respectively). The average internal price set on carbon is currently around $50 compared to the $75 per ton of CO2e required to reach 2030 climate targets (according to the IMF).
Going forward, GBTA will conduct the Sustainability Acceleration Challenge every year to track industry progress on decarbonizing business travel programs. Fourteen companies have already pledged publicly to participate in the Acceleration Challenge in the future and improve their score year-on-year. All companies are invited to publicly pledge their participation and join the Acceleration Challenge on an ongoing basis.
For more information, visit www.gbtafoundation.org.
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