sustainable business travel policy example

Five ways to build a sustainable business travel policy

By Paljor Lama, Senior Consultant

A sustainability-focused business travel policy can be a powerful tool – not only to influence your organization’s carbon footprint but also to provide your employees with the support they need to be able to carry out their responsibilities safely and effectively.

The COVID-19 pandemic and its effect on the global economy have taken sustainable business travel practices from being an important consideration to an essential one. Building a sustainable business travel program encompasses everything from reducing overall emissions and working with sustainable suppliers and carbon offset partners, to ensuring the right communications strategy is in place to secure traveler buy-in.

Here are five ways to incorporate sustainability into your travel policy to make sure you’re ready as the landscape continues to evolve rapidly, and we enter into the new future of travel.

Provide guidance on how to access virtual collaboration tools and who to reach out to for support.

Employees want to do the right thing. Better equip them to replace travel with virtual alternatives. In your policy, detail the communications tools that are available and provide relevant links to access them as well as any training materials that may be available.

This is also an opportunity to provide guidelines on how to create an engaging virtual meeting experience and maximize participant engagement. Provide tips like learning everyone’s names and using them, waiting longer for input, and listening actively. Finally, provide clear guidelines on reimbursable communications expenses to empower employees to encourage them to utilize technology and teleconferencing in lieu of travel.

Strongly discourage one or two-day trips.

Short trips and internal travel are the most easily replaced by virtual tools. Limiting travel to essential trips that are several days long or combining several trips into one will minimize your traveler’s risk and fulfilling your duty of care requirements, while also helping to reduce emissions and increase productivity. Because travel is typically the biggest contributor to an organization’s environmental footprint, reducing the number of trips will contribute to achieving overall sustainability and corporate social responsibility goals.

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Include a “stay or go” decision tree in the policy and ensure that the logic permeates all facets of the guidelines.

This provides travelers with guidance on sustainable options while keeping them engaged in the decision-making process. Include guidance on selecting meeting venues with considerations of optimum locations and routing. Consider reinforcing this tactic with some statistics throughout the year. Communicate with relatable numbers, like “If we reduce travel by X%, we could save $$$, X in carbon emissions and X time spent on the road.”

Put employee well-being front-and-center.

Elevate the traveler experience by making their best interests the priority. Actively educate that travel alternatives will not only generate savings but also improve employee work-life balance, along with their overall well-being. Consider targeting road warriors, educating them on the negative effects of frequent travel.

Influence travelers to make lower carbon emission choices.

Integrating sustainability messaging into your employee engagement strategy is the best way to give them the information they need at the right time in the decisions making process. Consider creating assets to communicate messaging like:

• Consider trains before planes. Trains are more energy-efficient per passenger mile than planes or cars, making them one of the most eco-friendly transportation options (outside of walking or riding bikes).
• If you do need to fly, choose a newer aircraft, and fly direct instead of connecting. Newer aircrafts burn significantly lower fuel (look for Boeing 787, Airbus 321 NEO or the Airbus 350) and so do direct flights. Choosing both will mitigate your carbon impact.
• When possible, utilize public transport or rent electrical vehicles.
• Look for green-certified accommodations.

Incorporating these sustainability elements into your travel policy will not only improve employee and public affinity to your organization, but also future fit your program to minimize disruptions and maximize employee safety and productivity. Make travel an integral part of achieving your organization’s sustainability goals.

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How to create a sustainable travel policy for businesses

Table of contents

As 2024 unfolds, the urgency of sustainability has taken center stage, pushing many businesses to rethink their strategies and practices. One of the main areas feeling this shift? Corporate travel. 

It’s no longer enough to make business travel decisions solely based on cost and convenience. With only a third of companies incorporating business travel into their sustainability programs, and the market expected to grow by 188% globally by 2028, the call to inject some environmental responsibility into these choices is louder than ever.

This Academy post will give you everything you need to develop an effective sustainable travel policy for your company.

Discover why these policies are important, how they can benefit your business, and follow our step-by-step guide to creating your own. Plus, we’ve even thrown in a handy sustainable travel policy template so you can get started today – no excuses!

Why do businesses need a sustainable travel policy in 2024?

While travel will always remain an important part of conducting business, we can't ignore its impact on the environment. 

With transport accounting for around a quarter of the world's CO2 emissions , and aviation alone responsible for 2-3% , it's clear we need to make changes. For businesses, this means putting in place a sustainable travel policy to reduce their environmental footprint and help in the collective fight against climate change.

And it’s not just an environmental imperative – there’s also growing pressure from consumers, investors, and employees for businesses to operate responsibly. 

IBM’s Institute for Business Value (IBV) study found that two out of three respondents say they’re more willing to apply for (67%) and accept (68%) jobs from environmentally sustainable companies.

Governments worldwide are also getting stricter about environmental rules, including mandates directed at corporate travel. 

The EU’s new Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) , for example, requires companies to report on their environmental impact. Since corporate travel can make up a large part of your carbon footprint, having a sustainable travel policy can help your business reduce emissions, comply with regulations, and avoid nasty penalties.

Besides environmental responsibility and responding to stakeholder expectations, adopting a sustainable travel policy offers many advantages for your business.

From cutting costs to enhancing your reputation and future-proofing your business, there are plenty of ways a sustainable travel policy is good for business. We'll dive into these benefits in more detail soon.

What exactly is a sustainable business travel policy? 

A sustainable business travel policy is a set of guidelines that outlines how your employees can travel for work in a way that reduces environmental impact. 

It should cover various topics, such as minimizing travel frequency, choosing eco-friendly transportation modes, and supporting accommodations and vendors that adhere to sustainability standards. 

The goal is to balance business needs with environmental responsibility and employee well-being.

Sustainable travel policy template

Ready to make your company’s travel more sustainable? Coolset's sustainable travel policy template is what you’ve been looking for. 

With our template, you can:

• Figure out simple ways to cut down on travel emissions
• Find and suggest greener travel choices to your employees
• Create a travel policy that fits with your overall sustainability strategy

Download our free template below and start your journey toward more sustainable corporate travel practices today. 

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Benefits of adopting sustainable travel practices for businesses

Adopting sustainable travel practices can bring about a wide array of benefits for your business. Here’s a closer look at these advantages:

Cost savings

Implementing a sustainable travel policy isn’t just good for the environment, it’s also great for your bottom line. By optimizing travel plans and reducing the frequency of trips, you can conserve resources and cut down on expenses.

Positive brand perception

Today’s consumers, investors, and employees prefer to engage with environmentally responsible businesses. NIQ’s Green Divide report from 2023 revealed that 70% of consumers now place more importance on sustainability when choosing brands compared to two years ago. 

By implementing a sustainable travel policy, you’re not just reducing your carbon footprint, but you’re also enhancing your brand’s appeal and credibility.

Regulatory compliance

As governments worldwide enforce stricter environmental regulations, implementing a sustainable travel policy can help you to comply and avoid any potential legal issues. 

The EU’s CSRD requires companies to report on their environmental impact as early as this year. So, there’s no time like the present to begin planning your decarbonization journey – and corporate travel is a good place to start.

Future-proofing the business

Sustainability has shifted from a nice-to-have to a standard business practice. By adopting sustainable travel practices now, your business can stay ahead of the curve and be prepared for what’s ahead.

How to create a sustainable travel policy

Creating a sustainable travel policy involves a series of strategic steps, from rethinking how and where we travel to embracing technology and monitoring our progress. Let’s break it down:

1. Evaluate business travel methods and destinations

The first step to creating your sustainable travel policy is getting a good grasp of your current travel situation. Take time to evaluate the necessity and frequency of business trips and consider alternatives. Could you choose more sustainable destinations or meet virtually instead?

You may decide to limit international travel to essential trips only. You could prioritize travel to locations accessible by train rather than plane to reduce your carbon footprint.

2. Encourage virtual meetings 

One of the simplest ways to slash travel emissions is to replace physical meetings with virtual meetings. Take advantage of video conferencing and digital communication tools to reduce the need for physical travel and to reduce travel frequency.

3. Plan and coordinate meeting locations

When face-to-face meetings are necessary, select a location that makes sense for as many participants as possible. This can minimize travel distances and save on emissions.

4. Opt for eco-friendly transportation

Encourage the use of more sustainable modes of transport like public transport, biking, electric vehicles, carpooling, or even choosing airlines with carbon offset programs.

Providing incentives like discounted public transport cards or free electric vehicle charging at the office can get employees involved and foster a culture of environmental responsibility.

5. Provide easy-to-use digital tools 

Use travel booking tools that prioritize the most environmentally friendly hotels and flights. That way, you can rest assured you’re making more sustainable choices without having to spend extra time on research. 

6. Offset emissions 

Invest in carbon offset programs to compensate for the emissions generated from necessary travel. Partnering with a company like One Tree Planted allows you to invest in reforestation projects equivalent to your travel carbon footprint.

7. Monitor and report

Regularly track and analyze the environmental impact of your business travel and report these findings for continuous improvement. Using a carbon accounting tool like Coolset can help you to accurately track the carbon emissions from corporate travel and automatically generate reports based on your needs.

How to communicate travel policy changes to your employees?

Communication is key when it comes to implementing your new travel policy. Not only will it increase the likelihood of compliance but it can also encourage a culture of sustainability. 

Here are some tips on how to do it effectively:

• Make an initial announcement : Make a clear and concise announcement about your new travel policy via email, newsletter, or a dedicated meeting.
• Provide detailed documentation : Explain the new travel policy in a document or handbook outlining the reasons for the change, the benefits, and specific guidelines.
• Offer training : Organize training sessions for employees to understand the new policy thoroughly. Make sure to address how to book travel, what’s expected, and who to contact for questions.
• Provide Q&A opportunities : Provide employees with the opportunity to ask questions or express concerns.
• Post regular updates and reminders : Post regular updates to keep the policy fresh in the minds of employees. This could be via company meetings, email, or your internal communication platforms.
• Encourage feedback : Make it easy for employees to share feedback or suggestions regarding the new policy. 
• Lead by example: Last but not least, remember to lead by example. Senior management should always adhere to the new policy and doing so will encourage your employees to follow suit.

Download your free sustainable travel policy template

Ready to embrace a greener approach to corporate travel? Discover the perfect tool with Coolset's sustainable travel policy template.

This template empowers you to:

• Identify effective strategies to reduce travel-related carbon emissions
• Explore and recommend eco-friendly travel options for your team
• Craft a travel policy that aligns with your broader sustainability goals

Download our free template below and set the course for a more sustainable, environmentally-conscious business journey.

Coolset's sustainable travel policy template is what you’ve been looking for. 

Ready to make your company’s travel more sustainable?

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How to build a sustainable travel policy

Jul 27, 2022

Running a sustainable business doesn’t start and end in the office. You must always consider it, even during business trips, which means putting a sustainable travel policy in place.

Building a sustainable travel policy will help to reduce emissions and promote employee wellbeing as your team travels. To get it right, you need to review the forms of transport your team takes and make sure you partner with sustainable companies — like Bolt Business .

What is a business travel policy ?

If any number of your employees travel for work then business travel policies are essential. A corporate business travel policy increases safety, ensures reliability, and keeps costs down. 

Business travel policies clarify to your employees why, how, and when they can travel for work. These policies are essentially a group of business travel guidelines that let your employees know:

• Which forms of transport they can use;
• How much they can spend;
• What they can and can’t expense. 

Regarding expenses, with Bolt Business , your employees can charge ground travel straight to your company in the Bolt app , removing the need to use their own money and lose time claiming expenses.

But your business travel policies shouldn’t entirely revolve around spending. Of growing importance is making sure your business travel policies consider sustainability. And the best way to do this is by building a sustainable business travel policy.

What is a sustainable travel policy ?

The main aim of many sustainable travel policies is to reduce carbon emissions from business travel. And reducing environmental impact must be a key part of your company’s travel policy. 

But the sustainable travel policies you implement should consider 4 sustainability pillars: environmental, human, social, and economic.

This means your company’s travel policy needs to cover: 

• Environmental issues;
• Employee wellbeing;
• Economic impact.

Including the above will give your team a safe way to travel for work while having little to no environmental impact.

Let’s look at each of these pillars in more detail. 👇

Environmental issues

As travel makes up 16.2% of global greenhouse gas emissions , addressing business travel and turning to more sustainable options will boost your company’s green credentials.

To achieve your green travel ambitions: 

• Reduce carbon emissions; 
• Offset remaining emissions; 
• Work with sustainable travel partners.

Employee wellbeing

A stressful and long commute has a negative impact on the success of any business trip. And f or 90% of employees , the quality of business travel impacts their job satisfaction. 

You must do everything possible to achieve business goals while maintaining job satisfaction for your travellers. 

Frequent employee surveys will help you understand how satisfied your team is with your business travel policies .   

Economic impact

Travelling allows your business to contribute to the local economy. Encourage your team to support local accommodation venues, transport services, and businesses. 

Acting in an economically sustainable way will be a great benefit to the local economy in your host city and country. 

Why now is the time to have a green business travel plan

The number of companies recognising the importance of sustainability in business is growing. And for many of those companies, business travel is a significant source of carbon emissions. 

Employees want to work for companies with sustainability at the heart of their business plans.

How to build a sustainable business travel policy

When building a sustainable travel policy, the best place to start is to understand how and where you need to improve. To do that, it’s crucial to calculate the current carbon emissions from your company’s business travel. 

Once you’ve done that, you can take the necessary actions:

• Use digital tickets and receipts; 
• Find alternatives to air travel; 
• Offer incentives to encourage greener travel habits;
• Turning to electric or hybrid company cars .

You can then offset any remaining carbon emissions.

Understand your current travel carbon emissions

58% of companies measure the carbon emissions of their business travel. This is a great place to start when building a sustainable travel policy, but it needs to go further. Few companies are taking any action once they know their carbon footprint:

• 17% of companies offset carbon emissions from travel;
• 19% encourage the use of public transport or low-emission vehicles;
• 22% consider their carbon impact when working with suppliers.

It’s worth noting that this final statistic is expected to rise significantly as more legislation encourages companies to monitor and report on their Scope 3 carbon emissions .

Offset carbon emissions

Knowing your company’s carbon footprint gives you a platform to build a sustainable travel policy . 

It’s important to recognise the areas of your team’s business travel that emit the most carbon — most likely air travel . In countries such as France, flights are now banned when the same journey can be made by train in less than 2.5 hours.

You can then take steps to find alternative forms of transport, such as public transport or low-emission vehicles.

When alternatives aren’t possible, offsetting carbon emissions is an option. This can involve: 

• Making capital investments in green technology;
• Investing in renewable energy or energy efficiency projects.

Rather than handling this yourself, you can partner with sustainable travel companies. All Bolt rides in Europe are carbon-neutral as we contribute to carbon offset projects around the globe. And you can get a Carbon Offset Certificate to prove that the emissions from these trips have been neutralised.

Your team will also be able to use our other sustainable travel options, including electric vehicles and climate-positive electric scooters.

Use digital tickets and receipts

Planting trees is an important part of managing carbon emissions. But if you’re still using paper tickets and receipts, that contributes to trees being cut down. 

Ordering travel services online has made it easier to remove physical tickets, but receipts are still a problem — especially when it comes to expense reports. 

Bolt Business automatically provides a pre-filled digital receipt after every journey. This makes travel more sustainable and saves your team hours of reporting time.

Find alternatives to air travel

Air travel makes up 90% of emissions from business travel. Bringing down the number of flights your team takes will set your business on its way to achieving its sustainability goals. 

But when business takes your team overseas, it can be hard to avoid air travel. 

Train travel is often the best alternative; in some cases (like the Eurostar), it can take you overseas without needing to fly. You’ll also save time going through security. 

If the trip’s for a meeting, make sure it actually needs to be in person. A video call could save a lot of carbon. Otherwise, avoid first-class air travel as emissions are three times higher than economy per person. 

“Business trips are under much more scrutiny than in previous years regarding sustainability. If there’s not enough value in the trip, it won’t happen.” Nick Powell, Vice President, Bolt Business

You should also focus on ensuring the travel to and from the airport is sustainable — limiting the environmental impact.

Turn to electric or hybrid vehicles

The company car has been an integral part of business travel for years. But as fuel costs continue to rise, many companies are looking at alternatives to managing a fleet.

You could turn to a car allowance or company fuel cards , but these won’t save you from rising costs. 

And they shift the problem of carbon emissions onto the employee. Only 4.6% of cars on EU roads are powered by an alternative to petrol or diesel — making it highly likely that most of your team will be driving petrol or diesel cars. 

Turning to electric or hybrid company cars will help to lower carbon emissions. But replacing an entire fleet will be expensive.

Sustainable travel policy template

The ideal sustainable travel policy will make it easy for your team to travel without harming the environment. 

A sustainable travel policy can include: 

• Allowing electric scooter and e-bike rides;
• Permitting travel to and from specific locations;
• Limiting the maximum number of rides within a certain timeframe.

By introducing a sustainable travel policy , your company could end up with a separate policy for expenses. But these policies can work together. 

With Bolt Business, you get a digital pre-filled receipt after every journey, and admins can access full travel reports. This means your travel and expense policies can work together and save your team hours of time reporting expenses. 

Supporting your team to travel sustainably

Having a sustainable travel policy in place is the first step. It’s then a case of giving your team the tools they need to make environmentally-friendly travel choices. 

29% of travel managers believe employees haven’t had enough training regarding the environmental impact of business travel. And this acts as a blocker for building a sustainable travel policy . However, 65% of employees want to work for a company with strong environmental policies. Taking steps to run a more sustainable business will improve employee morale and make hiring easier. And the steps you take toward a sustainable future will strengthen your workplace culture . So motivation isn’t the problem. It’s all about giving your team the tools they need to make the greenest possible choices.

Empower your team to make sustainable travel choices

Make it easy for your team to arrange green business travel themselves, and your sustainable travel policy will be a success.

With Bolt Business, your team has the control and flexibility to arrange ground travel as and when needed. And they can choose from a range of sustainable travel options:

• Get picked up in an electric car;
• Take a carbon-neutral work ride;
• Hop on a climate-positive electric scooter .

Plus, employees can charge work rides to the company, which means no more time is lost filling out expense reports. 

Sustainable travel policy FAQs

What is a green travel policy.

A green travel policy allows your employees to perform their professional duties while travelling for work in a way that keeps emissions to a minimum.

What is a sustainable travel plan?

A company’s sustainable business travel policy outlines how your employees can travel for work in a way that reduces environmental impact. One of the biggest differences you can make as a company is to remove single-occupancy car travel.

What are examples of sustainable travel companies ?

Bolt Business is a sustainable travel company that allows your organisation to reduce its reliance on private and company cars. Your employees can get picked up by a driver, commute on a Bolt scooter or e-bike, or use the car-sharing service Bolt Drive. 

Build your sustainable travel policy with Bolt Business

With Bolt Business, you can set the rules for your company’s sustainable travel policy from an online dashboard. You’ll also have the flexibility to adjust travel rules to suit different individuals and teams. 

Once you’ve set up travel rules and spending limits, admins can arrange transport using Ride Booker . Each team member can decide on their own travel itinerary from the Bolt app .

Sign up with Bolt Business to make your company’s ground travel more sustainable.

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How to Create a Sustainable Travel Policy for Your Company

Sustainability is becoming a priority for companies of all sizes. Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) initiatives are not just internal affairs anymore; they extend to corporate travel policies as well. As someone managing corporate travel, you hold tremendous power to make a significant impact on your company’s sustainability.

In 2019, a single company generated nearly 146k metric tons of CO2 emissions, equivalent to the emissions from nearly 18k homes over a year. A large part of this footprint comes from business travel. With nearly half of companies reporting an increased focus on the social/environmental impact of business travel, it's clear that sustainable business travel is no longer a nice-to-have, but a must-have.

The good news is that there are simple and cost-effective ways to implement a new level of sustainability into your corporate travel policies. It all comes down to examining your current policies and modifying them as needed to incorporate more sustainably-oriented objectives. For more insights on this, check out this article by the World Economic Forum.

How to Make Your Corporate Travel More Sustainable

Implementing sustainability initiatives doesn’t mean you have to turn your policies upside down. It’s all about making small, easily-enacted changes that can have a big impact. Here are some strategies to consider:

Consider Making It a Virtual Meeting: If there’s one thing that the pandemic taught us, it’s that a large majority of our work activities can be completed from an office (at home or in an office building). While there are times when an in-person visit is merited, it might be time to reevaluate which travel is essential. 

Incorporate Sustainability into Your Policies: Include verbiage that puts priority/focus on more sustainable/eco-friendly travel methods. For example, consider trains vs. planes, direct flights vs. connections, EV rentals, and LEED-certified accommodations. 

Offer Sustainable Amenities: Providing sustainable amenities, perks, and travel gear can help improve the sustainability of corporate travel. For instance, provide a refillable water bottle or reusable straw, offer reusable bags, and encourage eco-friendly travel practices. 

Take Your Corporate Travel Sustainability to the Next Level with AmTrav

Corporate sustainability initiatives are starting to permeate throughout every company policy, including travel policies. Fortunately, there are quick, easily-implemented changes you can make as a travel manager to help achieve corporate sustainability goals. At AmTrav, we're committed to helping you navigate this journey toward more sustainable business travel. Let's work together to make a difference. Get in touch with us today.

Consider Making It a Virtual Meeting

The pandemic has shown us that a large majority of our work activities can be completed remotely. While there are times when an in-person visit is merited, it might be time to reevaluate which travel is essential.

The rise of digital communication tools has made it easier than ever to connect with colleagues and clients around the world without leaving your office or home. By considering whether a meeting can be done virtually, you can significantly reduce your company's carbon footprint. For more on this, check out our blog posts on corporate meetings in 2022 and beyond.

Incorporate Sustainability into Your Policies

Incorporating sustainability into your corporate travel policies is a powerful way to promote eco-friendly practices. It's not just about reducing carbon emissions, but also about fostering a culture of sustainability within your organization. Prioritizing sustainable travel methods, such as choosing trains over planes or opting for direct flights over connections, can have a significant impact on your company's carbon footprint.

Consider the benefits of renting electric vehicles for ground transportation or encouraging employees to stay at LEED-certified accommodations. These choices not only reduce environmental impact but also align with the growing consumer preference for businesses that prioritize sustainability.

But it's not just about the big decisions. Even small changes in policy can have a big impact. For example, consider implementing a policy that encourages employees to turn off lights and electronic devices in their hotel rooms when they're not in use.

By making sustainability a core part of your travel policies, you're not just reducing your company's environmental impact. You're also setting a positive example for your employees, stakeholders, and the industry at large.

Offer Sustainable Amenities

Promoting sustainability in business travel isn't just about policies and procedures. It's also about providing the tools and resources your employees need to make sustainable choices while they're on the road.

Consider offering sustainable amenities and perks to your traveling employees. This could include providing employees with refillable water bottles or reusable straws, which can significantly reduce plastic waste. You could also offer reusable bags for travel, which are not only more sustainable but also often more durable and versatile than disposable alternatives.

Encourage eco-friendly travel practices by providing resources and information. This could include guides to local public transportation, maps of walking or cycling routes, or lists of nearby restaurants that source their food sustainably.

By offering these amenities, you're not just helping your employees make more sustainable choices. You're also demonstrating your company's commitment to sustainability in a tangible, meaningful way.

Corporate sustainability is no longer a niche concern, but a central aspect of modern business strategy. This shift is evident in every facet of company policy, including travel policies. As a travel manager, you have the power to make significant strides towards achieving your company's sustainability goals.

At AmTrav, we understand that change can be challenging. That's why we're committed to making this transition as smooth as possible. We offer tools and resources designed to help you implement sustainable practices quickly and effectively. From providing insights on eco-friendly travel options to offering a platform that makes managing travel policies more efficient, we're here to support you every step of the way.

But we're not just about providing tools. We believe in the power of partnership. We're ready to work with you, understand your unique needs and challenges, and develop solutions that align with your sustainability goals.

Together, we can make a difference. We can transform the way we travel, reduce our environmental impact, and pave the way for a more sustainable future. So let's get started. Reach out to us today, and let's take your corporate travel sustainability to the next level.

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How to create a sustainable corporate travel policy

Learn how to implement a corporate travel policy that cuts costs, reduces carbon emissions, and boosts employee awareness.

When introducing sustainability across your business, make sure to prioritize the activities that contribute the most to your overall footprint - like corporate business travel. Creating a sustainable corporate travel policy not only helps reduce your environmental impact but also showcases a commitment to sustainability, both internally and externally. In this article we'll take you through some of the differences between corporate travel policies, how to write one, and what it takes to successfully implement a sustainable corporate travel policy across your organization.

5 reasons your company needs a sustainable travel policy

Discover how a sustainable travel policy can help you cut costs, reduce emissions and boost employee awareness around climate change.

What are the different types of corporate travel policies? 

Corporate travel policy .

A corporate travel policy is a set of guidelines and rules that companies put in place to help regulate and manage employee business travel. A corporate travel policy would typically lay out some expectations and requirements for how employees book their travel, claim for their travel-related expenses, and suggest some overall guidance for how employees can ensure their own personal safety and wellbeing when they’re traveling for work. The main purpose of a corporate travel policy is to control costs and maintain consistency in travel-related decisions across the organization.

Corporate travel and expense policy

There aren't huge differences between a corporate travel policy and a corporate travel and expense policy, but by adding expenses into your policy, you can kill two birds with one stone, because you can set the guidelines for how employees book their travel, but also how they manage their daily expense allowances and articulate the protocol for how they submit those expenses when they return home. Adding an expense module into your corporate travel policy makes a lot of sense because expense management is such a big part of what makes or breaks a good travel policy.   

Corporate, expense and sustainable travel policy

So now we're rolling corporate travel management, expenses AND sustainability into one, but there's a good reason why that is. Businesses of all sizes are experiencing levels of travel that are exceeding pre-pandemic levels. Added to that, they're also trying to reduce their carbon footprint in line with climate targets and Net Zero goals. Adding sustainability into your corporate travel policy will help you provide employees with the structure and education so that they can make more sustainable choices when they're traveling for work. It also has the benefit of helping Travel Managers stay in control of their travel budgets, and gives ESG and Sustainability Managers the overview they need to stay on track with Net Zero targets.

Do I need a corporate travel policy?

Deciding whether you need to implement a travel policy and which one is most appropriate for your business will depend on a few key factors, such as how many employees need to travel, how often they travel and what sustainability goals you have in place. However, as a rule of thumb, if you have more than 10 employees traveling at least once a month, you’ll benefit from any kind of travel policy. This is because it helps you control costs for things like flights and accommodation, but it also sets the guardrails for what can and can’t be expensed, and helps prevent any unexpected costs. If you're not already convinced, here are a few other benefits to introducing a travel policy to your organization: 

• Improves expense control:  Get better control of travel-related expenses and ensure that employees adhere to specific guidelines for booking, accommodation, meals, and other costs.
• Helps drive consistent decision-making:  Ensure consistency in decision-making across the organization regarding travel arrangements, expense reimbursement, and other travel-related matters.
• Keeps employees safe when they’re traveling:  As an employer, you have a responsibility to keep your employees safe when they’re traveling for work. A travel policy sets out expectations for safety measures and communication when employees are traveling.
• Helps keep you compliant: If your business operates in regions with specific legal or compliance requirements related to travel, having a policy in place can help ensure that your employees are aware of and adhere to these regulations.
• Clears up any expense reimbursement issues: If you've encountered challenges with managing and reimbursing travel expenses, a clear travel policy can streamline the reimbursement process and reduce potential misunderstandings.
• Helps you leverage negotiated corporate rates:  If your company has the opportunity to negotiate corporate rates with hotels, airlines, or other travel service providers, a travel policy can help outline and leverage these negotiated rates.
• Sets clear expectations for business travel:  If you want to establish clear communication channels between traveling employees and the office and set expectations for when they should check in and what constitutes business as opposed to " bleisure " travel.
• Helps anticipate travel costs: If you want to have a structured approach to financial planning for business travel, including budgeting, cost control, and forecasting, a policy can help you with that.
• Helps create structure as you grow If your company is growing and the number of employees traveling for business is increasing, a travel policy becomes increasingly important to manage the associated complexities.

Goodwings travel policy features

Who should be involved in developing my corporate travel policy?

It’s a good idea to set up a core team of people who will be part of the design and / or implementation of the travel policy. A few chosen people will be needed for this, including:

Responsible for crafting the overall structure of the policy and making sure that the language is clear but still in keeping with the company’s values and tone of voice. They will also help ensure that the policy addresses employees needs, meets the relevant employment laws and that there is the appropriate training in place to get it off the ground.

Responsible for designing the expense part of the policy, which includes how expenses should be reimbursed, what classifies as an expense, and all budgetary considerations for when employees are booking their travel. The finance team will aim to strike the balance between controlling costs, and making sure that employees have what they need to be able to travel effectively.

If your company has set carbon reduction or Net Zero targets, the sustainability team will be involved in assessing how those targets can be achieved with travel, for example limiting travel or putting in place strict guidelines for when travel is deemed necessary. If you’ve gone one step further and set up internal carbon fees , the sustainability team, together with the finance team, will work out when and where those are applicable.   

The travel management team will be the ones responsible for managing the travel policy, and if you plan to use a travel management tool, they’ll have the task of setting up things like approval processes. You’ll want to get their input on what would make the day-to-day running of the travel policy smoother for them.  

Finally, you may also want to involve your legal team, to make sure that you’re following all the appropriate employment laws and regulations, as well as your tech team, if the travel policy or approval flows need to be implemented in an internal intranet system, or input into your travel management system. 

What should I do before I start writing my corporate travel policy?

Writing the policy is easy - we've even done it for you here , but before you start, you'll want to work out what the purpose of the travel policy is, how it will be used and shared and how you will structure the information in it. Here are a few things to consider before you get started: 

• Get input from your team Speak to the team members who are traveling the most to determine what they struggling with the most when they travel. Is it that they're not sure what classifies as an expense, or that when they travel to certain countries, they don't know what the protocol is should anything happen. These insights will be helpful when you come to writing the policy. 

The one thing you can't get from a travel policy template is who, specifically in your company, should set the travel approvals. Before you set anything in stone, you'll want to identify who has the authority to sign off trips and expenses so that everyone knows who to go to for what. If you have a travel management tool this may be a feature they offer automatically, but you still need to assign that person. 

If you haven't got a travel management system or booking tool in place, you'll want to set something up before you finalise your travel policy. Most good travel management systems include pre-approval features to make approving travel much simpler, so that employees don't have to ask their manager every time they need to book a trip.

• Assign responsibility for the policy You should look at the travel policy as a living, breathing document that will require changes and amendments in line with new travel patterns, sustainability targets and changes to the company's financials. Assigning one person to oversee and own the policy will make sure that there is consistency and one person that everyone can go to with feedback.
• Check what's included in your travel insurance So that you can provide your employees with all the right information in one central place, gather your policy details from your travel insurance provider (or if you haven't set up travel insurance yet, now is the time to get it sorted). Employees should have easy access to travel insurance details, in the case of an emergency. 

How should I write my corporate travel policy? 

When you come to writing your corporate travel policy, a clear structure will make it easier to read and hopefully follow too! Here are a few things you should consider:

Define the purpose of the travel policy

The first section of the travel policy should focus on who the travel policy is for, and why it’s important for the company to have one in place. For example, is the policy for specific employees who travel the most, or is it for everyone in the organization? A short paragraph should go something like this, emphasizing not only that it’s useful for the company, but that it will also help make their lives easier:

“The purpose of our travel policy is to establish clear guidelines and expectations for employees that need to travel on behalf of the company. The aim of this policy is to  ensure consistency, cost control, and the safety and well-being of our employees when they’re traveling. By defining approval processes, outlining booking procedures, and setting reimbursement policies, we hope to streamline travel-related activities and expenses while maintaining transparency and fairness. The travel policy should also be used to promote compliance with relevant laws and ethical standards, which are very important to us as a business. Ultimately, this document should serve as a valuable resource for employees, giving you the tools and knowledge to navigate the complexities of business travel efficiently and in accordance with our organizational standards and values.”

Set clear guidelines

Be clear on who within the company will be responsible for approving travel requests and provide contact details of that person so that employees can get in touch directly with any questions or concerns that are not specifically covered in the travel policy. You’ll also want to set clear guidelines for how employees should book their flights, accommodation and other travel related bookings. Sustainability targets should also be incorporated into these guidelines, with clear guidance on how employees can minimize their carbon footprint by choosing more sustainable options for flight carriers, hotels etc.. 

• Expense Policies

You should have a specific section that outlines the company’s policy on expense reimbursement. This should include details of what constitutes a “per diem”  or “PD” allowance, as well as all other eligible expenses, and submission requirements. This can often be where the confusion lies if the guidance is not clear, so it’s worth spending a little bit more time to make sure everything is covered and that you’ve outlined a clear process with the help of finance. 

• Accommodation and Transportation

Clearly define what is considered to be an acceptable standard of accommodation, as well as suggesting modes of transport that employees should use (with specific guidance for countries or cities that may be considered to be less safe than others). For a more sustainable approach,  include guidance on modes of transport that are more sustainable than others (for example, choosing newer aircraft for flights, or staying in hotels that are LEED registered).

• International Travel Considerations

Employees should be given clear instruction about what visa requirements are needed to enter specific countries, as this could potentially derail an important business trip. Be sure to also include information such as currency exchange, cultural considerations, and any necessary vaccinations that are needed. If you have any third parties that can help organise these requirements, include their information as well. 

• Safety and Security

One of the most important parts of the travel policy is safety and security, also known as “duty of care”, because you have a responsibility as an employer to keep your employees safe when they’re traveling on behalf of the company. To that end, you’ll want to include guidance on emergency procedures, contact information, and any travel insurance coverage.

Don't settle for "good enough" with your business travel.

How can I incorporate sustainability into my corporate travel policy?

The most important thing to emphasize in your corporate travel policy is that employees should first of all consider whether travel is necessary in the first place. You can do this by providing them with some set criteria, for example, travel may be essential for team building and leadership development but less important for something like basic skills training. Laying this groundwork will make it much easier for employees to know when they should be traveling and when they should be using online video conferencing tools.  Once you've set those guidelines, you can use the travel policy as a part educational tool, part policy to help employees understand how to plan and travel more sustainably. Here are a few additional tips that can help you make sure that sustainability is incorporated into your policy:

"Fewer but longer trips" is a very effective way of reducing emissions, which requires planning and coordination with other team members. For example if there's a team project that will require a number of trips to the same location, perhaps that number can be reduced with forward planning.

Enforcing sustainable behaviour is harder than it may seem and changing hard-worn habits won't happen overnight. But to increase your chances of success, you'll want to introduce a sustainable booking tool to help them track their emissions and provide them with informative tips so that they're encouraged to make better decisions when they travel. This could be, for example, showing the difference in emissions between two flights or encouraging them to limit stopovers and travel directly. A good sustainable booking tool can help automate this with low-carbon flight paths, sustainable hotel options,  and AI-generated information on the vegan or vegetarian food options to try when you're at your destination

Implementing " internal carbon fees " (a financial cost attached to business travel emissions) is a good way of making travel emissions more real for employees, and helping them better understand the environmental cost of their decisions. These can be applied at a team level, to give teams flexibility to manage their own traevl, while still taking responsibility for it. 

Take sustainable business travel to the next level with Goodwings

How should i implement a sustainable travel policy.

Now that you've learned how to incorporate sustainability into your corporate travel policy, it's time to get everyone on board. Here's a few tips to make sure you're setting yourself up for success. 

Communicate the message from the top

If the CEO doesn’t firmly endorse the sustainable travel policy, it’s going to be hard to get it off the ground, because it's then left to the office or travel manager to enforce, which is a hard position for them with no support. A simple way of doing this is to get the CEO to send out an all-personnel email or arrange a company meeting. Here are the key things that they should cover in their communication:

• Why traveling more sustainably is important for the business, but also for the planet This is a huge opportunity for the CEO to inspire and really show the company’s commitment to reducing the climate impact of business travel.  
• What the goal is (for example, we want / need to reduce our carbon emissions by 20% by 2025) Whether your business has official reduction targets or not, it’s important to have a tangible goal (just like you would for any business initiative), that can help you measure success.
• What employees’ role is in making it a success Increasingly, employees want to know that there is a role for them beyond their nine to five. Involving them in a target-based initiative like travel is a great way of giving them ownership of something that can really make a difference. 
• Why their feedback is important Getting it right will take time and lots of rounds of feedback, so providing space for employees to share their experience (for example if they are using a new platform or software) will highlight that it’s a process and one that they’re all part of.
• When and how the initial results will be shared Having regular check-ins to share the results and feedback is the best way of boosting morale and gives you the best chance of making it a long-term success.

According to a recent study, 42% of businesses in the US and 45% in Europe are assigning “carbon-emissions budgets” to incentivize employees to curb their business travel.

Even with the best intentions, people naturally gravitate towards tried and tested behaviours. This is why creating the conditions for success is so important. Having “default” settings on your employees browsers with your preferred travel supplier is a great way of preventing this from happening because you're eliminating the comfortable options that they would naturally gravitate towards. 

Start with a pilot project!

The easiest way to fail is to give people tools that are complicated or that go against an established way of doing things in the company. To check whether the sustainable travel policy or new travel management system is intuitive and easy to use, select a core group of people of different seniority levels and run a pilot project. That way you can get feedback before it’s rolled out to the whole group. Be sure to give your pilot group specific criteria for the type of feedback you want so that you don’t get buried in highly detailed (but irrelevant) feedback.

"A pilot project is a great way to get instant feedback on whether something is working or not, and make adjustments to your approach" 

Sille krukow, nudge and behavioral design expert, build your own sustainable travel policy with our free guide.

Enforce the sustainable travel policy at a team level 

The success or failure of your sustainable travel policy should not sit on one person’s shoulders. To make sure that there is an equal split of responsibility, give team leaders ownership for their own team’s business travel and make sure it's in line with the sustainable travel policy. This will give teams the autonomy to manage themselves, but also create more accountability when you're assessing CO2 emissions totals. 

Make it competitive 

A little bit of competition never hurt anyone (!), particularly when a positive result is ultimately good for the planet. Consider whether to set goals for individual teams to reduce their carbon emissions and announce a “winner” every quarter to make it a bit more fun. 

Celebrate the results!

Who doesn’t love a good news story? Sharing milestones with your employees will boost morale and reinforce the message that it's “progress not perfection” that the company is looking for and that everyone has an important part to play in the outcome. Sharing the results externally, provided you have quality data to back it up, is also a great way of showing that you're doing your part in the fight against climate change. 

Turn your employees into climate heroes

Discover how Goodwings is helping PNO employees track and reduce their carbon emissions

Never stop monitoring your progress 

Having quarterly or bi-annual check-ins will make sure that the initiative you've introduced stays on track. Maybe your reduction goals weren’t ambitious enough or there’s a new, better solution on the market that will make your life easier. Taking action on these learnings regularly will make sure that any new initiative you introduce keeps evolving over time. 

Encourage knowledge sharing

Maybe the sales team travels regularly for work and has useful travel hacks or local transportation tips to share. This sort of sharing should be widely encouraged and documented to not only create a positive and inclusive internal travel culture, but also help keep sustainability top of mind when people are on the road. 

Conclusion:

A well-crafted corporate travel policy will serve as a guiding framework that not only streamlines business travel but also aligns with broader corporate objectives. With the right approach, a corporate travel policy can be an invaluable tool for enhancing operational efficiency, minimizing risks, and ensuring responsible and well-managed business travel within the organization.

Ready to create your own sustainable travel policy? 

Download our free guide and start traveling smarter today!

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How to Build Your Sustainable Business Travel Policy

Companies are working to reduce their carbon footprint and empower employees to make choices that reduce their impact on the environment.

A recent report from the Institute of Travel Management found that sustainability is the top area where corporate travel managers do not feel that online booking tools support their needs. This stems from a disconnect between the capabilities of booking platforms and the evolving sustainability needs of the companies that use them.

Sustainable business travel policies help companies set guidelines for air travel, ground transportation, and accommodations that minimize environmental impact. Most organizations, however, do not have the right technology to put an effective policy in place to encourage sustainable corporate travel choices.

Spotnana is the first corporate travel management tool to have robust and dynamic sustainability policy capabilities built into the core of its platform .

In this blog post, we will discuss how you can build a sustainable business travel policy for your company. We will also show you how Spotnana can help you implement and manage this policy to drive more sustainable travel choices and encourage your travelers to embrace more sensible booking options.

Here are the three most important steps to take when considering building a sustainability policy to support your company’s business travel activity.

Step One: Discover your program’s carbon impact

There are a number of factors to consider when developing a sustainable business travel policy, but one of the most important is setting limits on carbon emissions.

The best way to do this is to use a carbon calculator that can help you find out your program’s current carbon output before implementing a new policy.

Travel managers have access to the total carbon emissions of their travel program, allowing them to design more sustainable policies.

If your global travel program is split between different providers, this can be extremely difficult and require third-party firms to collect, analyze, and report on this data in a consistent manner.

Likewise, if a large portion of your travelers book outside of your program, those trips won’t be reflected in the environmental impact of your travel program.

Spotnana’s air travel search and booking capability is fully integrated with a leading CO2 calculator that enables travelers to easily find out the estimated CO2 emission for each flight segment flown based on the combination of airline, aircraft type, and cabin class.

Since your entire global travel program can operate using Spotnana, you will quickly receive comprehensive insights into the areas in which your sustainability travel policy can create a positive impact.

Step Two: Design a policy to meet sustainability goals

Once you have insights into the areas of your travel program that lead to the highest carbon output, you can begin to build a dynamic travel policy around your goals.

Spotnana’s innovative travel policy management tool gives you the ability to set parameters around carbon emissions, allowing you to choose how much CO2 each traveler is allowed to emit per flown passenger kilometer.

Placing guidelines around this metric not only allows you to make your travel program more sustainable, it also helps you manage and monitor your progress along the way.

Short flights and domestic flights, for instance, tend to emit more CO2 per passenger flown. By placing a policy around avoiding short flights, or flights with a high CO2 volume per passenger, you can encourage travelers to choose green options like a rail trip or use teleconferencing instead.

Travel managers can create policy rules around how much carbon emission is acceptable for flights booked.

The granularity of Spotnana’s policy engine also allows guidelines to be set for specific offices, groups, and departments. If you find that a particular team is flying short routes to routinely meet up in person with potential clients, for example, you can set guidelines to have them require hard approval for these trips or use rail travel instead.

Since changing the guidelines for one group doesn’t affect the rules governing your overall travel policy, travel managers can seamlessly implement new guidelines without affecting areas of a program that are working well.

Step Three: Reinforce and adjust your policy as needed

It is important to remember that a sustainable business travel policy is not a static set of rules and guidelines. As your company sustainability goals change, your policy should too.

Part of this is related to your organization and individual travelers’ reaction to a new policy. Communication is essential to helping travelers embrace new policy requirements. If policy rules aren’t reflected by visual feedback provided during the search and booking process, travelers may become frustrated and begin to book out of compliance.

Spotnana brings the carbon impact of traveler choices to the forefront of the corporate travel search and booking process with a fully integrated display of the estimated CO2 emissions for a flight based on a combination of airline, aircraft type, and cabin class.

Travelers are prompted during the booking process if their selection violates their corporate sustainability guidelines.

This allows you to be proactive about setting and enforcing a policy and provides valuable feedback to travelers about why certain choices are better for the environment and others have a higher impact.

Travelers also receive an out of policy warning when selecting travel choices that violate your organization’s sustainable travel policy, encouraging them to select another option.

If you find that travelers are routinely violating your policy by receiving exceptions or booking outside the platform, you can tighten the rules or increase communication and education around the importance of sustainable business travel choices.

If a particular route is consistently being booked that doesn’t fit within your sustainability goals, for example, you can quickly adjust your policy to forbid bookings on that route without disrupting the rest of your company’s travel.

Spotnana displays the estimated carbon output of a flight on the checkout screen to remind travelers of the impact of their decisions. Once a trip is booked, the total carbon output of a trip is displayed prominently on the trip page as well.

By showing individual travelers the impact of their choices, you can help drive buy-in for your travel program and train your travelers to select more sustainable options that achieve your company’s goals.

Want to to get started building your sustainable business travel policy? Contact us for a demo to see how Spotnana can help you meet your sustainability goals.

• Module 2: Defining Sustainable Travel Management

Sidebar Module

GBTA Sustainability Toolkit

Part A: A Starter’s Guide – Sustainability in Business Travel

• Module 3: Getting Started

Part B: Getting the data right – Tracking, Offsetting, Reporting

• Module 4: Introduction to Sustainability Data
• Module 5: Tracking Emissions
• Module 6: Offsetting Emissions
• Module 7: Sustainability Reporting

Part C: Reducing emissions – How to travel smarter and better

• Module 8: Influencing traveler behavior and managing demand
• Module 9: Greening Procurement
• Module 10: Sustainable Transportation
• Module 11: Sustainable Accommodation
• Module 12: Sustainable Meetings & Events

Learning Objectives

• This module provides an overview of the opportunities and non-financial costs of business travel for companies.
• Readers will learn what sustainable business travel means and why it is important.
• This module gives insights into the company departments that are involved in the different company sustainability processes.

Business travel is valuable.

What is sustainable business travel.

Broadly, sustainable business travel means enabling people to connect and conduct business while doing what is right for society and the planet. It means capitalizing on the clear value of business travel while also mitigating the costs to the environment and society.

• Encouraging environmentally-friendly modes of transportation
• Optimizing efficiency and purpose of trips
• Using virtual alternatives when possible
• Working with sustainable suppliers and vendors
• Identifying opportunities to support and give back to local communities
• Championing equity, diversity, and inclusion (DEI)
• Educating and incentivizing travelers to make sustainable decisions
• reduce uncertainty and limit risk (e.g., by preparing for future regulations or for shortage of capacity)
• reduce costs and use resources more efficiently
• enhance the brand and reputation of a company among customers, shareholders, and employees
• improve the work-life balance of employees
• support the company’s own offerings of new products and services in the growth market of sustainability (sustainability can help organizations boost overall sales revenues up to 20% )

How can travel managers advance climate action?

• This means making rapid emissions cuts now, halving emissions by 2030.
• Most companies are required to have long-term targets with emission reductions of at least 90-95% by 2050.

On a journey of such importance, it’s best to travel together.

Key takeaways.

• Business travel fuels company growth and helps retain talent, but it also carries costs both financially, socially, and environmentally.
• E nvironmental concerns, adhering to regulations, and improving company reputation have led companies to increasingly look into integrating sustainable practices into their business models.
• Broadly, sustainable business travel means enabling people to connect and conduct business while doing what is right for society and the planet.
• To make the transition to sustainable business travel models, it is recommended to establish partnerships with the company's sustainability and human resources department, investors, your TMC, technology providers, and other suppliers.
• Travel managers have the spending power to develop the right partnerships with sustainable suppliers in order to drive sustainable business travel.

Custom Block

How To Make Business Travel More Sustainable

Business travel is having a resurgence as the COVID-19 pandemic slows down and in-person events have resumed. Professionals are enjoying face-to-face collaboration and networking after several years of working remotely. In fact,  32% of consumers  are planning to travel for business in 2023.

As organizations resume regular business travel, it brings up questions of sustainability and ethics. How should we reduce our impact on the environment while traveling for business? How can we be mindful of the communities we’re visiting and have a positive impact?

Now is the perfect time to rethink the way we travel for work. The public is more aware of sustainability issues than ever. According to a recent report from the  Global Business Travel Association , 89% of business travel industry professionals cite sustainability as a priority for their company. This cultural shift means that there are plenty of resources and tools to help your organization implement more sustainable business travel.

What is sustainable travel?

At its core, sustainable travel focuses on minimizing the negative or harmful impacts of travel while simultaneously emphasizing its positive aspects. For business travel, changes typically need to be made on both an individual and organizational level.

Reducing our impact on the environment is one of the most talked-about aspects of sustainable travel. According to the GBTA, the top three sustainability priorities for business travel professionals are emissions reduction, energy efficiency, and waste reduction. Environmentally-friendly behaviors are a key component of any sustainable travel strategy.

Social and cultural considerations are an equally important component of sustainable travel. Mass travel dramatically changes a destination’s economy and culture in both positive and negative ways. Sustainable business travel uplifts the community you’re visiting, rather than creating further challenges for the people who live there.

Ways to make business travel more sustainable

There are many ways to make your business trips more sustainable without compromising on important in-person cooperation. Even small changes to your business travel routine can make a big impact in the long run. Here are 12 of our best sustainable travel practices for business.

1. Book business travel selectively

Before planning a business trip, consider whether there are remote work alternatives. Video conferencing and digital project management tools have made it easier than ever to conduct meetings from anywhere in the world without traveling.

Of course, there will always be important meetings, conferences, and events that need to happen in person. Consider scheduling multiple meetings or events in the same trip when possible. Eliminating unnecessary business trips will give your team more time and energy to focus on essential travel and reduce your corporate carbon footprint.

When deciding whether a trip is essential or not, keep your destination in mind. Some destinations are adversely affected by high volumes of tourism, while others are encouraging travel because of its economic benefits. For example,  Barcelona  has long struggled with high volumes of visitors, but there are many other cities and towns nearby that work well as alternatives for conferences.

2. Book lower emissions flights

The aviation industry is a significant source of CO2 emissions globally. As of 2018, flying was responsible for  2.5% of global carbon emissions . Booking direct flights will help you reduce your business travel carbon footprint overall.

Not only do direct flights cover shorter distances, but they also reduce the number of takeoffs and landings completed during your trip. Carbon emissions are highest during takeoff and landing. Along with reducing emissions, many business professionals prefer to fly direct. You’ll spend less time in the air and have more time once you arrive at your destination.

Additionally, flying in economy class accounts for fewer emissions overall than business class. Although you’ll have a little less legroom, your individual carbon footprint will be smaller because there are more people on the flight.

When choosing an airline, opt for carriers that have a sustainability strategy in place. For example, some airlines have opted to invest in fuel-efficient planes and sustainable fuel options.

3. Consider eco-friendly transportation alternatives

When planning your trip, consider a variety of different transportation options to find the most eco-friendly choice. If your final destination isn’t too far away, consider taking a train or intercity bus instead of flying. For group trips, carpooling is also an effective way to reduce your carbon footprint, especially if you have access to an electric or hybrid vehicle.

While these alternative modes of transportation may take longer than flying, many people find them more comfortable and less stressful. For example, trains, buses, and cars offer more legroom than plane seats. In some cases, ground transportation is cheaper than flying as well.

4. Walk, bike, or use public transit at your destination

Once you arrive at your destination, skip the rental car or taxi to reduce your emissions. Look for hotels that are within walking distance to the office or event venue where you will be meeting.

Additionally, look for hotels in areas that have public transportation or bike share options and encourage your team to use them. Rideshare apps are a good alternative if public transportation isn’t available.

Look at all of the public transit options in your destination. Many travelers focus entirely on local subway systems, but buses can also be a very effective and affordable way to get from place to place. Many cities also have commuter rail systems, which are very effective if you need to travel to a nearby suburb or town.

5. Invest in carbon offsets

Virtually every form of travel will result in some carbon emissions, even if you use eco-friendly modes of transit. Investing in corporate carbon offsetting will help you balance out the CO2 you create with projects that reduce greenhouse gasses elsewhere.

Our  carbon neutral corporate travel program  gives businesses a straightforward way to neutralize emissions. First, we’ll calculate your total travel carbon footprint based on all of your transportation and hotel stays. Then, you’ll purchase an appropriate amount of offsets or sign up for an ongoing subscription plan. If you’d prefer to automate the process, our  carbon api  can be integrated with your corporate travel management software to power carbon measurement and offsetting for each booking.

If your employer doesn’t have an offset program in place, you can still balance out your own business travel emissions. Our  online carbon calculator  can be used to calculate and offset emissions from one or multiple trips in just a few clicks.

Regardless of how you purchase carbon offsets, the money you spend goes to our mixed  portfolio of climate projects . This includes projects like maintaining forests, generating clean renewable energy, or restoring degraded wetlands. These projects fight climate change by removing CO2 from the atmosphere or preventing new emissions from happening.

Along with reducing emissions, these projects also create added benefits for communities and wildlife which can advance your broader ESG goals. Carbon offsets should be utilized alongside decarbonization tactics to minimize your negative impact on the environment and accelerate the global transition to net zero.

6. Choose hotels with environmentally friendly practices

According to the Sustainable Hospitality Alliance, hotels need to reduce per-room carbon emissions by  66% by 2030 . Many major hotel chains have already implemented environmentally friendly practices to conserve energy and water and minimize waste.

Single-use plastic is one of the largest sources of waste, so many hotels have switched to bulk toiletries as well as reusable silverware and recycling whenever possible. Additionally, many hotels are using composting to reduce food waste and have altered their on-site menus to be more environmentally friendly.

When selecting hotels for your trip, look into their sustainability practices and use of renewable energy sources like solar, wind, and geothermal power. For example, many hotels will now only provide new towels and sheets upon request to reduce the amount of laundry they do each day. Many modern hotels also use smart technology that automatically shuts off the lights or turns down the thermostat to cut back on electricity usage.

Environmentally friendly hotels will usually have a detailed sustainability plan on their website. Certifications from LEED and other sustainability organizations are also a positive sign to watch for.

7. Go paperless with your travel documents

Switching from paper to digital travel documents is a simple and convenient sustainability practice. Not only does this reduce paper waste, but it makes travel planning and organizing more efficient.

Most airlines have their own apps where customers can download digital boarding passes and view details for upcoming flights. Some hotel chains also have mobile apps where you can book upcoming stays and view booking confirmations.

For group travel, use cloud-based tools to share itineraries, schedules, and other key pieces of travel information with your entire team. Paper documents often end up lost in the shuffle, while digital documents are easily accessible as long as you have a device with internet access.

8. Support local restaurants and vendors

Eating at local restaurants is one of the best ways to make sure that the community benefits from the dollars you’re spending in their city. Additionally, it’s one of the best ways to get to know the city and give your team an experience that they wouldn’t get at home.

When planning business dinners for your trip, choose restaurants that are owned and operated locally, rather than large chains. Additionally, look for restaurants that offer fair pay and good working conditions for their staff.

If possible, look for restaurants that use locally sourced ingredients, as this lowers the carbon footprint of your meal. Opting for vegetarian or vegan dishes when available is another way to minimize your impact on the planet. In general, eating a vegetarian diet results in about  half the carbon emissions  of a meat-heavy diet. Even if you’re not fully vegetarian or vegan, cutting meat out of your diet occasionally or eating less beef still makes a difference.

9. Offer reusable water bottles for your team

When you’re on the go, it’s easy to pick up single-use plastic water bottles to stay hydrated. However, even a few plastic water bottles per day on a trip can quickly lead to a large amount of waste.

A fun and easy way to encourage sustainability among your team members while traveling is to provide branded reusable water bottles for travel. Many airports, hotels, and conference centers have water refill stations to encourage sustainability.

Company water bottles are not only sustainable, but they’re a great way to increase your organization’s brand awareness. You can take things even further by offering other reusable branded items, such as lunchboxes or shopping bags.

10. Be respectful of the local community

When you’re traveling for business, it’s important to remember that you’re a guest in someone else’s community, so treat it with the same kindness that you would treat your own community. Avoid littering and leave any space you visit the way you found it.

Additionally, be respectful of the local culture and customs. Research the culture before you visit and make sure that your entire team is aware of the proper etiquette for both business and social situations. This way, you’ll present your organization in a positive light and avoid offending those around you.

In addition to researching etiquette and cultural norms, it’s also important to read up on the history of your destination as well as any relevant current events. Not only will this help you be a more respectful guest, but it will also help you navigate your destination more effectively.

For example,  Hawaii  is now limiting access to certain parks and attractions that are sacred parts of local culture. Doing some advance research will help your team understand which places are appropriate to visit and which are best left to locals.

11. Get your entire team on board

In order for your sustainability initiative to be successful, you’ll need everyone in your organization to buy in. When everyone on your team cares about sustainability and participates in your initiatives, you’ll be able to make progress more quickly.

To ensure that everyone is on the same page, implement a company-wide policy for sustainable travel. Be as specific as possible in your policy to set appropriate expectations for your team members. Your sustainability policy will serve as a helpful guide for your team members as they book travel tickets and accommodations.

Many of the world’s largest organizations are already implementing their own policies and incentives for sustainable business travel. For example,  Microsoft  is already buying sustainable aviation fuel credits for their team, which covers the cost of cleaner fuel for future flights.  Salesforce  has also implemented a strict sustainability policy which partially ties executive pay to ESG performance, including their carbon footprint. To enable their employees to make climate-friendly choices, Salesforce has a booking tool that recommends the lowest-emission modes of travel.

Once you’ve defined your travel policy, the next step is to offer sustainable travel training for your team. This will give your employees more context for why sustainability is so important and how to be more conscientious when traveling for work. We offer educational programs on responsible travel and climate action to help organizations empower and engage their staff.  Get in touch  if you’d like us to host a training session for your team.

12. Continuously measure your impact

As your organization works towards more eco-friendly and responsible travel, it’s important to track your progress. Actively monitor your carbon footprint to determine if your strategy is working, and look for places where you can improve even further.

You may need to adjust your sustainability strategy as your organization evolves. As your company grows, you’ll likely have access to more resources, but you’ll also have more employees and more trips to account for. Standardizing your travel policies early on and communicating clearly about any changes will help keep everyone on the same page.

In addition to calculating your organization’s carbon footprint as a whole, calculate the carbon footprint for each of your employees as they travel. This will incentivize your employees to travel more sustainably on their own. Your organization can even offer rewards for team members who reduce their carbon footprint the most.

As we move into a new era of business travel, now is the perfect time to rethink your organization’s strategy and implement new sustainability practices. Sustainable business travel is unique in that it is mutually beneficial for both your organization and the community around you.

If you’re looking to get started with your sustainability journey, be sure to check out our  carbon offset program  and use our  carbon footprint calculator  to estimate your current output.

• May 9, 2023
• Blog , Climate Change , Conscious Business , People & Culture , Sustainable Travel , Waste & Pollution

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Mastering Sustainable Business Travel in 2024: Navigating the Green Path

• February 29, 2024
• / Sustainability
• / By Daniela Solis

As we navigate the ever-evolving world of business, the footprint we leave behind becomes increasingly crucial. In a time where the health of our planet hangs in the balance, sustainable business travel emerges not just as a choice, but as a necessity. You’re not alone in this journey towards a greener future. Whether you’re an entrepreneur jet-setting across the globe or an employee planning your next business trip, the quest for eco-friendly travel options is more pertinent than ever.

In this article, we delve into practical, yet innovative strategies that can dramatically reduce your carbon footprint while on the move. Imagine being able to travel for business, meet your professional goals, and still contribute positively to the environment. From selecting low-emission flights to embracing digital travel management, we’re here to guide you through a path that aligns your business objectives with environmental stewardship.

Stay with us, and you’ll uncover not just the ‘why’ but the ‘how’ of transforming your business travel into a sustainable practice. This isn’t just about making a positive impact on the planet; it’s about becoming part of a movement that values responsibility, efficiency, and forward-thinking – essentials for any modern business.

Assessing the Necessity of Business Travel

As we navigate the evolving landscape of business travel, integrating sustainability into our plans is more than just a trend; it’s a necessity. When considering the essentials of each trip, we’re finding that sometimes the greenest choice isn’t about not traveling at all, but rather about traveling smarter. Opting for local car rentals, especially in bustling hubs of commerce and innovation, presents an intriguing solution.

It’s a thoughtful approach – renting a car at your destination often leads to less environmental strain than the alternative of a long drive in your personal vehicle. This choice not only cuts down on emissions due to shorter travel distances but also opens the door to selecting more eco-friendly vehicle options. Today’s rental fleets often boast newer models with improved fuel efficiency or even hybrid and electric options, each step in this direction marking a small victory for our planet. By consciously selecting such vehicles, we’re not just ticking off sustainability checkboxes; we’re actively contributing to a healthier environment, mile by responsible mile.

This approach not only helps in reducing the organization’s carbon footprint but also underscores the commitment to sustainable business practices. Whether it’s choosing the most environmentally responsible mode of transportation or opting for things car sharing , each decision plays a part in aligning business operations with sustainability goals.

In regions like Dubai, known for its bustling business environment and commitment to innovation, opting for business car rentals in Dubai is a strategic choice for many organizations. These services often offer a range of eco-friendly vehicles, catering to the evolving needs of modern business travelers who prioritize both efficiency and environmental responsibility. 

By choosing such sustainable solutions in a city that stands as a crossroads of international business, companies can maintain their commitment to green practices while navigating the demands of global commerce.

Embracing Virtual Meeting Alternatives

When planning a business trip, the first step is to determine the absolute need for physical presence. Ask yourself, can the objectives of this trip be achieved through virtual alternatives? In an era where technology bridges distances, video conferencing has emerged as a powerful tool, offering a cost-effective and environmentally friendly substitute for face-to-face meetings. It’s not just about reducing carbon emissions; it’s about optimizing resources and time efficiency, integral components of a sustainable travel program.

However, there are instances where in-person interactions are invaluable, especially for important meetings that require a more personal touch or complex negotiations. In such cases, sustainable travel options come into play. Opt for direct flights where possible, as they have a lower carbon impact compared to multiple connections. Additionally, when planning several trips, consider consolidating them into one, thereby significantly reducing the business travel carbon footprint.

Fostering a Culture of Sustainable Travel

Moreover, embarking on your sustainability journey in business travel isn’t just a solo endeavor. It involves cultivating a culture within your organization that prioritizes sustainable options. Encourage employees to be mindful of their travel choices and educate them on the impact of their decisions on the environment. This collective effort not only furthers your company’s sustainability goals but also fosters a sense of shared responsibility among the workforce.

Prioritizing Eco-Friendly Air Travel

In the realm of sustainable business travel, air travel is often the focus due to its significant environmental impact, particularly in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. To address this, one of the most effective sustainable travel practices is to choose flights more conscientiously. Opting for direct flights not only saves time but also reduces air travel emissions associated with takeoffs and landings, which are the most fuel-intensive parts of a journey. Furthermore, when booking flights, consider flying economy instead of business class, as the lower passenger density in business class results in a larger carbon footprint per person.

Embracing Ground Transportation Alternatives

Another key aspect of sustainable transportation is considering alternatives to air travel, especially for shorter distances. Utilizing ground transportation providers that offer hybrid or electric vehicle options can significantly reduce the carbon impact of travel. For instance, traveling by train, where feasible, is often a more environmentally friendly choice compared to air travel, especially if the trains are powered by clean energy sources.

Integrating Sustainability into Corporate Travel Policies

Corporate travel policies play a crucial role in promoting sustainable travel practices. Organizations should encourage the use of eco-friendly transportation options both in the air and on the ground. This can involve partnering with travel providers that prioritize environmental sustainability and offering incentives for employees who choose greener travel options. Additionally, when organizing events or meetings, consider the location of the office or event venue in relation to transportation options, prioritizing those that are accessible via public transportation or within walking distance to minimize the need for additional travel.

Leveraging Technology for Sustainable Travel Management

Technology also offers solutions for enhancing the sustainability of business travel. Digital tools can streamline the booking process, ensuring that the most environmentally friendly options are chosen. For example, travel management platforms can highlight flights with lower emissions or hotels that practice sustainability. Ensuring that booking confirmations and travel documents are digital reduces paper waste, further contributing to an organization’s sustainability goals.

Making Sustainable Choices at Your Destination

Upon reaching the final destination, the opportunity to reduce carbon footprint extends beyond transportation choices. Here, business travelers can make impactful decisions that contribute significantly to reducing emissions and the organization’s environmental footprint.

Opting for Green Accommodations

One of the most effective ways to reduce business travel emissions is by selecting hotels committed to sustainability. Many hotels now implement eco-friendly practices such as energy-efficient lighting, water conservation methods, and sustainable waste management. These establishments often have certifications or eco-labels, signaling their commitment to environmental stewardship. By booking business stays in such hotels, travelers can ensure their stay has a reduced negative impact on the environment.

Adopting Eco-friendly Practices at the Destination

Small actions can lead to substantial changes in reducing emissions. Encouraging the use of reusable water bottles instead of single-use plastics is a simple yet effective strategy. Similarly, packing light can contribute to reducing the overall weight on transportation modes like planes, indirectly contributing to fuel efficiency and fewer emissions per passenger mile. Additionally, choosing to walk or use public transportation for local travel can significantly lower the carbon footprint compared to hiring private vehicles.

Investing in Carbon Offsets

For the unavoidable emissions associated with business travel, investing in carbon offsets is a practical solution. By contributing to projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions, such as reforestation or renewable energy initiatives, travelers can balance out the carbon footprint of their trip. This practice allows businesses to take responsibility for their environmental impact and is an integral part of a comprehensive approach to sustainable travel .

Engaging with Local Communities and Environment

Finally, being mindful of the local environment and culture is crucial. Supporting local businesses and engaging in activities that do not harm the environment ensures that business travel has a positive or neutral effect on the destination. This approach not only enhances the travel experience but also aligns with the broader goals of sustainability.

Through these practices, business travelers can significantly reduce their carbon footprint while at their destination, contributing to their organization’s sustainability journey and making a positive impact on the environment.

Implementing Carbon Offsets in Sustainable Travel

Carbon offsets have become a pivotal element in the quest to balance the environmental impact of business travel. They represent a practical and effective way to counterbalance greenhouse gas emissions that are not always avoidable in the context of business travel. By investing in carbon offset projects, organizations can take active steps to neutralize their carbon footprint, aligning with broader sustainability targets.

Understanding Carbon Offsets

In the realm of sustainable business travel, carbon offsets have become a key strategy in mitigating the environmental impact, especially when unavoidable emissions arise. They serve as a practical method to counterbalance greenhouse gas emissions, which are sometimes an inherent part of business travel.

Alongside these efforts, integrating services like Uber Green can contribute to lowering emissions during urban travels. By investing in carbon offset projects and utilizing eco-friendly transportation options, organizations can actively work towards neutralizing their carbon footprint, thus aligning with wider sustainability goals and demonstrating a commitment to environmental responsibility.

Aligning Offsets with Corporate Sustainability Goals

Incorporating carbon offsets into a corporate travel policy requires a strategic approach. It involves first measuring the carbon footprint of travel activities accurately. Many organizations now use digital tools to track and report these emissions, often integrated with digital boarding passes and other travel technologies. Once the emissions are quantified, the equivalent amount can be offset by investing in certified carbon offset projects.

Choosing the Right Offset Projects

Selecting the right projects to invest in is crucial. It’s important to ensure that the projects are verifiable, effective, and align with the organization’s values. Many companies choose projects that not only offset carbon but also contribute to social or environmental goals, such as supporting biodiversity or local communities. This approach not only neutralizes the carbon footprint but also resonates with the company’s ethos and respect for local culture.

Integrating Offsets with Other Sustainable Practices

While carbon offsets are important, they should be part of a broader sustainability strategy. This includes choosing green hotels, reducing emissions through efficient travel planning, and incorporating sustainability into every aspect of the travel process. Offsetting is not a license to ignore other sustainable practices but should complement efforts like reducing travel where possible, opting for eco-friendly transportation, and supporting green initiatives at the destination.

By effectively balancing emissions with carbon offsets, businesses can make a significant contribution to the fight against climate change, demonstrating their commitment to sustainability and responsible corporate citizenship. This approach not only helps meet sustainability targets but also sets a positive example in the corporate world, showing that successful business travel can be achieved without compromising environmental integrity.

In our journey towards sustainable business travel, each choice we make carries significant weight. By reevaluating the need for travel, choosing eco-friendly transportation, staying at green hotels, and investing in carbon offsets, we not only reduce our environmental impact but also set new standards in corporate responsibility. This path is not just about preserving our planet; it’s about integrating sustainability into the very fabric of our business ethos. As we embrace these practices, we’re not just traveling; we’re leading by example, forging a future where business and environmental stewardship go hand in hand.

About the Author Daniela Solis

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Best Practices For A Sustainable Travel Program

5 ways to get sustainability right in your travel program.

As people everywhere become committed to more sustainable leisure and corporate travel, companies are exploring ways to evolve their travel programs to honor the sentiment of their employees and achieve their corporate social responsibility goals.

If the above rings true for your business, you may be asking what next? How does your business start working to leverage employee culture, industry partnerships, and corporate social responsibility programs to shape business travel programs? One place to start: partner with a travel management company (TMC) that reflects your company's values.

At Egencia, we operate as a carbon-neutral company. We offset our entire company footprint through tree planting and our support for sustainable tourism programs. Our own challenging green goals are a big driver for us and help us when it comes to understanding and supporting yours.

Once your TMC is in place, you can start working on creating a more sustainable travel program. Here's how:

5 steps to creating a more sustainable business travel program

• Don't be an island: Create a sustainability team

People across your company have a stake — and likely an interest — in building a more sustainable program. First, make sure you invite people from the following departments to get involved: travel, HR, security, purchasing, and communications. Schedule meetings to work together on deciding short, and long-term goals and work out how you'll hit them.

• Build sustainable travel into your policies

Now, you can reset your travel policies with the help of your sustainability team. Consider your green goals at every turn and ask yourself if your current policies are really getting you closer to them.

Look at the following areas of your program:

• Limit the number of travelers per trip to reduce your carbon footprint and ask for more meetings per trip to help your travelers make the most of their time on the road
• Limit the number of trips per month, per traveler
• Promote the use of public transport
• Encourage the use of e-ticketing and apps to avoid paper waste
• Ask your travelers to pack lighter luggage to reduce their environmental impact
• Air: Encourage travelers to book direct flights
• Hotel: Add custom locations and preferred hotels on your booking tool
• Rail: Ask travelers to consider rail before air for short trips
• Car rental: Encourage the use of hybrid or electric cars

If you're already one of our customers, don't forget to flag the above preferences with a tag on Egencia. That way, you can communicate your policies and help your travelers make more sustainable choices.

• Build the right supplier mix

The right supplier mix can help you smash your business' environmental goals. It's important to ask and understand what your travel suppliers are doing to support sustainable travel. Then consider how they may impact or improve your program's own sustainability aims.

Take these tips:

• Work with the Egencia consulting team to create and implement a Sustainable Hotel Program
• Define a supplier scoring system : Ask targeted questions in your next hotel RFP, or use the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI) ranking to identify local transport opportunities
• Map your preferred airlines, accounting for a high DJSI rank, CO2 reporting, and compensation
• Shift to trains and local transport options like trams and subways
• Choose rental car providers with hybrid and electric vehicles
• Focus on reporting

The CO2 dashboards in Egencia Analytics Studio help our customers monitor their travel program's carbon footprint. The dashboard data is key to understanding performance and measuring sustainability success.

"The Egencia CO2 dashboard is brilliant for us. It gives us visibility of our carbon impact, and the footprint we have as a business. It helps us to understand and educate our travelers as well. We want to educate travelers on the impact of flying long haul business class, first-class, or economy. We've all got to play a part in the fight against climate change, and the dashboard gives us data we can use to influence and change behaviors." 

— Michael McSperrin, global head of facilities and support services, Alexander Mann Solutions

Define the KPIs for your program's policies so you can track your progress:

• Travel policy : Use the points from section two (above) to set specific, measurable goals and determine how you'll decide if they've been successful
• Suppliers : Use part three (above) to measure whether your travelers are frequently using the sustainable suppliers you've suggested, shifting from air to rail, and choosing green car rentals
• Traveler well-being: Include features like number of days per trip, night flights taken, and mileage used
• Encourage sustainable traveler and arranger behavior

Inform your travelers about any changes to your travel program and help train them to become eco-responsible travelers. Don't forget to ask for their ideas here too; you could have a passionate sustainability expert in your organization and not even realize.

Follow these tips:

• Promote responsible consumption, e.g., avoid waste, use plastic alternatives, recycle and reuse
• Include and promote sustainable policies within your company's culture
• Monitor and reward sustainability performance

Getting started  

From defining your goals to supporting the right behaviors, you should now have enough information to start creating a more sustainable business travel program. Start by getting your green team together to make the most of everyone's insights and ideas. Then, make sure your partners are working just as hard as you. As McSperrin said, "We've all got to play a part in the fight against climate change." Find out more about Egencia CO2 workspaces , discover the truth behind some common misconceptions about sustainable travel, and learn how avoid them.

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Sustainable Business Travel Policy and Best Practices

Sustainability is the trending topic when it comes to travel. Tourists are looking for eco-friendly options, and corporations are looking at ways to lessen the impact of their business travel footprint. Many clients and potential employees are prioritizing working with a company that has demonstrable sustainability goals and corporations are taking notice. Maybe they want to attract top tier recruits, or they want to present an environmentally responsible corporate image, or perhaps they have real concerns about the environment. Sustainability has become a frequent topic in sales and customer conversations. It’s a part of a business’s social and environmental role in their community. 

Corporate travel programs face unique challenges when developing a sustainability policy. KesselRun is here to help develop a policy that is both economically viable and easily adaptable.

What Is Sustainable Business Travel Policy?

In short, it’s a policy that helps guide and optimize corporate travel planning towards the goal of reducing the carbon footprint of the company.

Sustainable business travel policies often start with Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emission reporting. Does the company disclose theirs, whether in annual reports or with industry updates?

The new expectation is for vendors to provide total CO2lbs and miles, but traditional data is actually estimates—which often don’t take into account other factors like actual load, wind speed, and seasonality. Airline data is almost always an estimate, but we can expect continued reporting improvement in the coming years. Companies want to provide the information, but finding accurate, science based data is a challenge. 

Accurate hotel emissions data is even more elusive. Preferred hotel chains may be able to provide some insight for an organization’s preferred stays but are unlikely to offer further detail. Any direct bookings—a particular concern for programs with high or unknown leakage—may not be on that preferred code and thereby excluded. For non-preferred, non-brand stays at individual hotels in a global program, chasing emission specifics is currently a Sisyphean task.

Car rentals provide the clearest picture, as actual mileage driven can be provided by rental partners. That said, organizations should still be aware that even partner-provided information may be incomplete. Business rentals made outside the corporate agreement would not be included; leisure rentals made on the corporate agreement would also skew that data. The ambiguity of the information available  presents a challenge when deciding the way forward.

A sustainable business travel policy is where companies’ intentions and reality should meet. Organizations are now looking to add sustainability guidelines and strengthen the language surrounding their goals, recognizing that it may require more development across the industry to be able to fully implement these policies. 

How to Create a Sustainable Business Travel Policy

The first step is to make sure your organization has clearly defined, scientific-based goals. Are you focused on Scope 1, 2, or 3 emissions? Are these goals published within your organization? Do travelers understand how their travel relates to these goals?

Education about travel sustainability is key to achieving these policy goals. People want to do the right thing, but in order to reach that stage, companies need to address a wide range of questions first, such as:

• Do you have “sustainability travel budgets” in place per traveler? Per department?
• Do you have offset programs in place?
• Do you have vendor requirements relative to their sustainability initiatives on a procurement level? For example, are you asking hotels in your preferred program about their processes, if single-use plastics are being replaced by glass or compostable material? 
• How is emission data being served up to travelers in the booking process?
• Does your TMC have the ability to capture “sustainability” as a reason code for a more expensive booking?
• Have you set a dollar value per kg emitted to help set company policy, tolerance levels and to help make the numbers more meaningful to travelers?
• What tolerance for cost does your organization have relative to vendor pricing? i.e. what percentage of cost increase are you willing to accept for a more sustainable travel option?
• Does your travel policy encourage consolidation of trips/trip purposes to limit flights?
• Are offsets reimbursable expenses?

Establishing a sustainable business travel policy involves all aspects of the business, not merely the travel department. 

How KesselRun Can Help

From KesselRun’s experience developing our clients’ sustainable business travel programs , here are our top 10 broad-spectrum tips:

• Get un-siloed. This is a conversation that should span many departments – travel, finance, risk, CSR teams, and more.
• Review historical data. While 2022 or 2023 is outdated, it may make sense to look at month over month or quarter over quarter for the last several years
• Frame the discussion around projections for the remainder of 2024 travel volumes
• Set realistic, scientific-based goals for your organization & publish them broadly
• Update your policy with clear and specific information relative to sustainability
• Update your OBT and other points of booking for travelers to reflect your goals and relevant data
• Ensure travelers have meaningful, relevant and timely information relative to their travel and the organization’s sustainability goals
• Monitor & Adapt – sustainability remains in its infancy for many, if not most, companies. Know that goals may change; data accuracy and sources will change; and technology will improve
• Report on progress in aggregate: it is still too early to track micro-trends

Should you need assistance in building a sustainable business travel policy or program, contact KesselRun today . They can analyze historical data; help develop teams and realistic sustainability goals; write a travel policy drawing on best practices but specific to your business culture and needs; optimize booking processes and in-line information; and help set up future reporting and metrics, to prepare for changes yet to come.

*This blog was originally published in 2021 and has been updated for 2024

Brandon Strauss currently serves as the Partner and a Co-Founder at KesselRun Corporate Travel Solutions. Brandon brings more than 25 years of combined business and corporate travel experience.

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Why sustainability should be part of your business travel policy

The time to act on sustainability is now

Traveling responsibly can equal savings.

Failure to act will affect talent acquisition

Sustainability is fast becoming government policy, so what can companies do to implement a change towards traveling sustainably, 1. streamline carbon emissions reporting.

2. Switch to greener transport options

3. opt for socially responsible carbon offsetting.

4. Craft a company culture with sustainability at its core

• Choosing e-tickets.
• Changing towels less frequently in hotel rooms.
• Avoid using miniature hotel toiletries and opt for filling reusable plastic bottles with your favorite products instead.
• Swapping single-use plastics, like plastic bags and water bottles for reusable products.
• Continue to recycle and reuse while on the road.
• Including allowances for electric vehicles in travel policies (feel free to use our sample company travel policy for employees to improve your own policy).
• Supporting local communities and local economies by buying 0 km produce.
• Opt for eco-hotels where possible but be wary of greenwashing.

The key to sustainability is traveling smarter

Start offsetting your business travel carbon emission today!

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The 2024 green travel policy for benefit corporations: what it is and how to structure it

Why adopt a green travel policy? Sustainability is a term we are hearing more and more about, especially in the travel industry as air travel is responsible for the 2,5% of global CO2 emissions . Sustainable travel is therefore becoming a priority for companies, especially for benefit corporations ( B-corp ) that aim to bring positive effects on the environment, society and to create awareness of the interconnections between people, nature, behaviors and consequences both globally and within the company’s own community. We can, therefore, summarize the importance of sustainability at the corporate level in three concepts:  

• environmental

A green travel policy is important because it brings awareness and education on a very important issue that needs to be dealt with more than ever in this particular historical moment.

Implement your own green travel policy

Having and making available clear guidelines on how to improve the sustainability of corporate travel to all members of the company is definitely the first step to take: deciding which types of travel are necessary and which are not, transforming short business trips into online meetings thanks to available technologies, introducing questionnaires to monitor employees’ uses and habits during business trips , introducing incentives and carbon offsetting services (you can read more about carbon offsetting here ). Download our green travel policy template for free here.

Difference between green (or eco-friendly) travel policy and green travel plan

Often looking for information online on the green travel policy you will find sites that talk about the green travel plan , in the paragraphs below you will find the differences between these documents.

The green travel policy is nothing more than a travel policy written from a “green” point of view , that is, in addition to taking into account the company’s expenses and procedures for booking travel, it also takes into account all the behaviors that can make these trips sustainable.

The green travel plan instead was introduced in the UK and is a plan drawn up by the company to reduce the use of cars and promote car sharing services, walking or cycling, the use of public transport in order to make more sustainable all movements that are usually made by car.  

Education and awareness

The first step is to educate employees about the importance of sustainability and the environmental impact of all our actions. A green travel policy (but also a green policy in general) is useful only if certain behaviors are already a normality in the current working life ; you can not expect employees to implement a sustainable behavior while traveling if then the company does not have separate waste collection or the heating remains on for hours at unnecessary temperatures.

How to make business travel sustainable?

There are several things you can implement in your business reality to be sustainable. For example:

• Online meetings. Limiting travel that can be replaced with online meetings will reduce the environmental impact and increase the productivity of the employee who can better organize his work in the workplace.  Provide your employees with all the digital tools to be able to avoid all those trips that are not essential. In addition to this, you need to make sure that your employees have all the directions and contacts of the relevant people to access them. Creating guidelines or offering training to make the best out of an online meeting will surely help your employees optimize the time they would have used while away.
• Travel Habits Questionnaire. Preparing a travel habits questionnaire for employees helps to identify the behaviors of each individual. By collecting this data, it is possible to set goals and intervene where necessary , as well as taking into account all possible aspects.
• Flights. A solution that is certainly sustainable is to prefer direct and non-stop flights , but above all to try to avoid short-haul flights because these are the ones that generate more CO2 per passenger per hour of flight time. 
• Sustainability Messages. It may help reduce your company’s environmental impact to incorporate sustainability messages/requests to decide what is needed and what is not.

For example, consider creating messages such as:

• Is travel necessary?
• Can you reach this destination by train?  
• If you can, consider booking an airplane flight where you will be able to travel in newer aircraft (such as Boeing 787, Airbus 321 NEO or Airbus 350).   
• Need to rent a car? Prefer hybrid or electric models.  
• If possible, use public transportation or electric vehicle rentals to get around the city.  
• Green Hotel. By now you’ll find many accomodations around th at take specific measures to reduce their environmental impact, and many of them also have green certificates.
• Define your green policy goals based on CO2 emissions per day, month, quarter or year. T his system can only be used if you have a data collection system based on a CO2 calculator , it will give you the possibility to measure all emissions whether it is a flight, train or hotel stay.
• Team work for sustainability. Having a team made up of people from different departments working as a group is the best way to draft a program regarding sustainability . The more people are aligned on the same topic, the more impactful and correct it will be in every way. This also helps create a sense of responsibility that can be passed on to everyone.
• CO2 offset program. Relying on an agency to manage CO2 offsets is already recognizing that you’re taking your own step toward a more sustainable future. (Learn more here )  
• Encouraging the use of green vehicles and hotels. Even when traveling is necessary, you can try to reduce your impact anyway. For this reason, a good solution is to try to encourage your employees to use electric vehicles or car sharing services , and likewise, to stay in hotels that promote a “green” service . (discover here all our tips for a green travel)  
• Employee education. Make your employees aware of your sustainability choices , perhaps by explaining the reasons and choices, for example by informing them which hotels are the most “green” services they can use while traveling.
• Choose your goals. The 2030 agenda for sustainable development of the United Nations aims to create a plan of action for the prosperity of people and the planet, to reduce poverty and help make every human action more sustainable for the planet.  Within this plan you can find the 17 points:  
• Zero Hunger
• Good Health and well-being
• Quality Education
• Gender Equality
• Clean Water and Sanitation
• Affordable and clean energy
• Decent work and economic growth
• Industry, innovation and infrastructure
• Reduced inequalities
• Sustainable cities and communities
• Responsible consumption and production
• Climate action
• Life below water
• Life on land
• Peace, justice and strong institutions
• Partnership for the goals

Adhering to these points therefore means actively engaging in bringing well-being and innovation among employees, the community and the environment; precisely the same values that a Benefit corp brings forward.

Incentivising your employees

You can consider a number of actions to incentivise your employees to have a more sustainable attitude , such as:

• Encourage them to use electric bicycles or scooters by offering to cover part of the cost or a free rental service.
• Incentivize with bonuses those employees who are actively engaged in following the policy or giving useful hints to keep the company’s sustainability level high. 
• Incentivize them with services such as charging stations for electric cars, parking for bicycles, providing a timetable or offering to reimburse tickets to those who use the vehicles.
• Encourage and reward those who choose to rent electric cars or scooters.   

What can BizAway do to make your trips more sustainable?

We care a lot about our planet and thanks to the partnership with Eden Reforest Project and Lufthansa Innovation Hub (LIH) we were the first platform to implement an automatic calculator for CO2 offsetting. When you book through the platform, whether it’s a flight, a hotel or a train, you’ll be shown the amount of CO2 emitted by that specific booking and the algorithm will tell you the monetary compensation needed to offset it. In fact, for every 10 cents donated, Eden will plant a mangrove, a tree capable, during its 25 years of life, of removing over 308 kg of CO2 from the atmosphere, on an average of 12.3 kg per year per tree.  

Thanks to the collaboration with Squake , a LIH’s project, it will also be possible to choose which projects to donate your CO2 offsetting contribution to.  

In addition, we have a partnership with Cooltra , a Spanish company that offers individuals and companies mobility on two wheels in Europe. We are the first company in the industry to offer this opportunity for business travel, thanks to this partnership our customers will have access to a fleet of over 17,000 scooters, 64% of which are electric, available in 13 cities in Italy, France, Spain and Portugal with the possibility of renting by minute, by day or even monthly.  

From this year we are also a Benefit Company, “ This was the natural consequence of a series of initiatives carried out with a positive impact on the territory and the environment ,” says Flavio del Bianco, co-founder and CTO of BizAway.

We are active in the local community with the Skillando Digital Volunteering community project for digital natives, supporting the activities of local artists and promoting volunteering through trash pick-up days in the forest or on the beach. The degree of awareness in production and/or service delivery is very important to us when choosing our suppliers.    

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Shoosmiths sustainable travel policy

Back to corporate responsibility

Shoosmiths is committed to a net zero future with Science Based Target initiative (SBTi) validated targets to reach net-zero GHG emissions across the value chain by FY2040.

Emissions related to business travel and commute to work form part of our carbon footprint and our strategy to minimise business and commute to work emissions and reduce associated environmental impacts is based on:

• implementing, maintaining, monitoring and communicating this policy across the firm and making it available to all interested parties;
• undertaking agile working practices, underpinned by our working principles, giving colleagues even more choice to make their own decisions on where and when they work;
• ensuring appropriate systems, technology and support are in place that make it easy for employees to manage their working day by minimising the need for business travel;
• operation of a centralised online booking platform for all domestic and overseas travel, facilitating the capture of management information to track progress against this policy;
• provision of guidelines on how to travel in a safe, cost effective and sustainable way including challenging the need for travel, encouraging a one day a week no travel approach and adopting a travel hierarchy approach. An internal carbon levy is applied for all business flight bookings, colleagues have the option to upgrade to first class rail travel for rail journeys of two hours or more and the use of public transport is encouraged for city centre locations;
• offering the UK ‘Cycle to Work’ scheme to employees which we have supported since 2007;
• offering an electric and low emission car salary sacrifice scheme for employees;
• exploring further options to incentivise employees to reduce travel related emissions;
• supporting our people to drive more safely and efficiently through e-learning;
• measuring and reporting business travel and commute to work emissions as part of our annual carbon footprint and target progress reporting;
• determining additional data for reporting, and
• sharing best practice internally and externally.

Date : 3 July 2023 Signed : David Jackson, Chief Executive

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Report: How Business Travel Can Support Corporate Social Responsibility

Many companies today are focused on corporate social responsibility, and sustainable business travel can play a big role in CSR strategies.

As a Travel Manager and the person in charge of arranging travel for your company, you have so much to think about and consider on a day-to-day basis, but there’s an emerging trend that also deserves your attention: using sustainable business travel to support corporate social responsibility efforts.

In the 21 st century, companies are focusing more and more on corporate social responsibility — called “CSR,” for short. CSR can include charitable giving and philanthropy programs, operating a business ethically, considering what’s best for the communities where a company operates, as well as taking care of the environment.

Business travel, of course, greatly expands a company’s carbon footprint. But a new report jointly offered by Booking.com and JTB Business Travel outlines 6 steps you can take in using sustainable business travel to reduce that footprint and support your company’s corporate social responsibility goals.

1. Consider CSR When Creating Travel Policies

Your company no doubt has a travel policy in place. Your company may also have in place a CSR policy. If so, the two policies should support one another.

Many companies express a desire to reduce their carbon footprints, but actually doing so can be much more difficult. That is, environment-related CSR ideas are easy to come by, but their implementation is far more challenging.

That’s why business travel is such a prime area to put CSR concepts into action. Global travel is one of the major contributors to carbon emissions. When your corporate travel policy includes measures designed to reduce those emissions, that’s an actionable step that can deliver real results.

2. Make Sure You Can Measure

Come up with some sort of measurement for your company’s sustainable business travel. Without measuring the impact business travel makes on the environment, it’s hard to understand how successful (or unsuccessful) your sustainability efforts are.

Measuring need not be complicated. In fact, there’s a relatively simple method you can use to calculate the sustainability of your business travel. You only need a system for keeping track of these two things:

• Method: Assign an environmental “cost” to various methods of travel, including airplanes, trains, taxis, buses, etc. Each time one of your traveling team members uses one of those methods, it incurs a cost to the environment that can be tabulated over time.
• Mileage: Keep track of mileage traveled using each method. Flight mileage is easy to secure, as it’s listed on most itineraries. Rental car mileage is often recorded on the invoice issued up return. Taxi entries on expense reports should include start and end points, which makes calculations straightforward.

3. Help Travelers Make Sustainable Decisions

Once you know the methods and mileages from any given trip, you can then use online tools like The Converging World’s Carbon Calculator to determine the cost to the environment of any given trip.

Your plans for sustainable business travel won’t go anywhere without internal buy-in. Once your travel policy includes sustainability measures, be sure to communicate those measures in a way that connects with employees.

As you seek buy-in from team members, consider these three strategies:

• Get Employees Involved: Seek input from employees who travel. For example, solicit their ideas for how to reduce their individual carbon footprints while traveling. If they have a sense of ownership, they will be much more likely to adhere to travel policies meant to promote sustainability.
• Make Goals Clear: Let your travelers know exactly what the target or goal for sustainability is. For example, your company may want to reduce its travel-related carbon footprint by 10% in a year. Let everyone know about that target — and how each traveler can help make progress toward that goal.
• Provide Regular Education: Create regular opportunities for education. Hold quarterly seminars that share best practices as well as progress toward sustainability goals.

Remain consistent as you seek buy-in from your travelers. Consistently get them involved. Consistently share the sustainability goals (and progress toward those goals). And provide consistent education, whether in person or via email.

4. Rethink Company Meetings

Skype, Facetime and other digital tools can sometimes replace in-person meetings — which is good, because the best way to reduce travel spend and a carbon footprint is to not travel in the first place. Virtual meetings don’t always work, though. Consider the following tips for reducing your company’s meeting-related carbon footprint while also promoting corporate social responsibility:

• Location: Strategically pick meeting locations that minimize travel distance for participants, or locations that allow for train or bus travel rather than air travel. As an added bonus, shorter trips can also help improve the business traveler experience.
• Materials: Provide meeting materials digitally and encourage participants to not print them off.
• Venues and Vendors: Look for meeting venues that have in place sustainability practices. Also, consider caterers and other vendors that locally source their ingredients and materials.

In-person meetings will always be a significant part of doing business. But use the ideas above to make those in-person meetings more sustainable.

5. Examine Your Supply Chain

When your company maintains a large supply chain, it’s likely there are waste and duplicated efforts among the supply chain’s different organizations. A close examination of your company’s supply chain can help eliminate that waste and duplication — while also helping to decrease the amount of time your team members spend traveling for supply chain-related reasons.

When examining your supply chain, look for:

• Suppliers who are closer to your business
• Modes of transportation (rail, ferry, etc.) that are less carbon-intensive than airplanes
• Opportunities to recycle and reuse materials rather than restocking

If and when you “green” your supply chain, you should find that your company’s carbon footprint associated with business travel decreases, too. For example, it’s far more sustainable to visit local or regional suppliers than it is to fly from one coast to the other.

6. Turn to Technology

Travel managers today are fortunate to have so many tools and technologies available to them. New technology can help streamline the booking and expense processes, and it can also be used to track and monitor business travel-related sustainability.

For example, many dedicated business booking systems (Booking.com included) can help track the metrics (like travel method and mileage) that are needed to determine a trip-by-trip carbon footprint figure.

Make Sure You Have the Right Tools and Latest Technologies

Does your company have in place the right tools and technologies for managing business travel and its impact on corporate social responsibility? At JTB Business Travel, we provide comprehensive services to our corporate clients — including helping them evaluate and select travel technologies that fit their needs.

We help companies reduce their travel spend while also improving the business traveler experience. Behind every recommendation we make and every service we provide is a common sense approach to business travel.

Get in touch today and learn more about our services.

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12 Best Practices for Sustainable Travel in 2024 – How to Travel with Minimal Environmental Impact

Posted: February 14, 2024 | Last updated: February 14, 2024

In an era where climate change and environmental conservation are paramount, sustainable travel has become more than a buzzword—it’s a necessary shift in how we explore the world. Sustainable travel means being mindful of our environmental impact while experiencing new cultures and destinations. This guide delves into the best practices for eco-friendly travel, ensuring your adventures contribute positively to the planet and local communities.

Choose Eco-Friendly Transportation

When planning your travels, opting for transportation methods that minimize carbon emissions is crucial in sustainable travel. For shorter distances, trains and buses are significantly more eco-friendly than airplanes, emitting far less carbon per passenger. This choice reduces your environmental impact and often provides a more scenic and immersive travel experience.

If air travel is unavoidable, particularly for longer distances, look for airlines that offer carbon offset programs. These programs allow you to compensate for the emissions from your flight by funding environmental projects such as reforestation or renewable energy initiatives. By making these conscious choices in your mode of transportation, you play a direct role in reducing the carbon footprint of your travels, contributing to the broader effort of environmental conservation.

Insider’s Tip: Rent electric or hybrid vehicles for road trips to reduce your carbon footprint.

Support Local Businesses

Engaging with local economies is a key aspect of sustainable travel and a practice that directly benefits the communities you visit. By choosing locally-owned accommodations, dining at local restaurants, and selecting local tour operators, you’re not only immersing yourself in the authentic culture of the destination but also ensuring that your spending contributes directly to the local economy. This approach supports small businesses and helps to distribute tourism dollars more evenly, fostering community development.

Moreover, local establishments often have a smaller carbon footprint than larger international chains. They’re more likely to use local resources, employ residents, and preserve traditional practices. By making these choices, you help sustain the local culture and environment while reducing the overall emissions associated with your travel. This way, your journey becomes more meaningful, both for you and for the people whose home you’re visiting.

Insider’s Tip: Seek out accommodations that are known for their sustainable practices and community involvement.

Pack Light and Eco-Friendly

Packing light is an effective way to contribute to more sustainable travel. By reducing the weight of your luggage, you indirectly help lower the fuel consumption of flights, decreasing the carbon emissions associated with air travel. Lighter planes mean less fuel burned, making a small but meaningful environmental impact. Additionally, consider incorporating eco-friendly travel products into your packing list. Choose biodegradable toiletries that minimize your plastic waste and reduce the environmental impact of your personal care products. Carrying a reusable water bottle cuts down on single-use plastics and keeps you hydrated without adding to plastic pollution.

Furthermore, solar-powered chargers are a green alternative to traditional charging methods, harnessing renewable energy to keep your devices powered up. By making thoughtful choices in what and how you pack, you protect the environment while still enjoying the conveniences and necessities of modern travel.

Insider’s Tip: Choose a backpack or suitcase made from recycled materials for an extra sustainable choice.

Respect Wildlife and Natural Habitats

In natural settings where wildlife is present, it’s crucial to maintain a respectful distance. This ensures not only your safety but also the well-being of the animals. Interfering with wildlife can disrupt their natural behaviors and habitats. Avoid attractions or activities that exploit animals for entertainment, as these often contribute to animal stress and harm. Instead, opt for wildlife viewing experiences that promote conservation and ethical practices.

Additionally, when exploring natural areas, stay on marked trails. Straying off the path can destroy habitat and negatively impact the local flora and fauna. By sticking to designated trails, you help preserve the natural environment and ensure it remains a wildlife sanctuary. Your mindful actions contribute to the conservation of these ecosystems, allowing future generations to enjoy and appreciate the natural world just as you do.

Insider’s Tip: Choose wildlife tours led by reputable guides who prioritize animal welfare and conservation. Do not ride elephants!

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Adhering to the three Rs of sustainability – reduce, reuse, and recycle – is fundamental in minimizing your environmental impact during travel. Reducing waste starts with making conscious decisions about what you consume and how. Opt for products with minimal packaging, and whenever possible, choose alternatives to single-use plastics, like carrying a reusable water bottle, coffee cup, and shopping bags. Reusing items not only cuts down on waste but also saves resources. For instance, refill your water bottle, use the same shopping bag, and choose accommodations that offer bulk toiletry dispensers rather than single-use containers.

Recycling is the last step, but it’s equally important. Ensure you’re disposing of waste properly by separating recyclables from trash. Consider carrying recyclables in areas where recycling facilities might not be readily available until you find a proper disposal point. By following these practices, you help reduce the amount of waste that ends up in landfills or, worse, natural habitats and oceans, thereby playing a part in preserving the environment while traveling.

Insider’s Tip: Carry a ‘zero-waste kit’ with reusable cutlery, a shopping bag, and a coffee cup.

Conserve Water and Energy

Being conscious of water and energy usage is a crucial aspect of sustainable travel. Simple, everyday actions can collectively make a significant impact on conserving resources. Remember to turn off lights, air conditioning, and electronic devices when not in use or leaving your accommodation. This not only saves energy but also reduces unnecessary electricity consumption. Consider taking shorter showers, a practical way to reduce water usage, and reuse towels instead of requesting new ones daily.

Many hotels and accommodations now encourage this practice as part of their environmental policies. By being mindful of your water and energy consumption, you reduce your travels’ environmental footprint. These small but meaningful actions are steps towards more responsible and sustainable tourism, ensuring that the natural and cultural environments you visit can be preserved and enjoyed for years to come.

Insider’s Tip: Stay in accommodations that utilize renewable energy sources or have water-saving systems in place.

Educate Yourself and Others

As a responsible traveler, it’s important to educate yourself about the environmental challenges faced by the destinations you visit. This knowledge enhances your understanding of the local context. It enables you to make more informed decisions about how to travel responsibly. Awareness of these issues allows you to adjust your behavior accordingly, such as using water sparingly in drought-prone areas or avoiding products contributing to habitat loss, whether it’s water scarcity, pollution, or habitat destruction.

Furthermore, sharing your sustainable travel practices with fellow travelers is a powerful way to spread awareness and encourage others to adopt similar habits. Engaging in conversations about sustainability, sharing tips on eco-friendly practices, or even leading by example can inspire those around you to be more environmentally conscious. This collective effort can create a significant positive impact, helping to preserve the beauty and integrity of the places you visit.

Insider’s Tip: Participate in local environmental initiatives or workshops if available.

Offset Your Carbon Footprint

Considering the carbon emissions from your travel is an essential part of sustainable tourism. While traveling without leaving a carbon footprint is challenging, you can mitigate this impact by investing in carbon offsetting initiatives. These programs typically involve contributing to projects that reduce carbon emissions elsewhere, like renewable energy projects which replace fossil fuels, or reforestation efforts that naturally absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

When you choose to offset your emissions, you’re taking responsibility for the environmental impact of your travel. Many airlines offer carbon offset programs at the point of purchase. However, you can also independently invest in verified projects around the world. By offsetting your carbon emissions, you’re contributing to global efforts against climate change, ensuring that your travel positively impacts the environment.

Insider’s Tip: Use online carbon calculators to estimate travel emissions and find suitable offsetting projects.

Embrace Slow Travel

Embracing slow travel is about prioritizing quality over quantity in your journeys. Rather than rushing to tick off a long list of destinations, this approach encourages you to spend more time in fewer places. Doing so allows you to delve deeper into the local culture, gaining a richer and more authentic understanding of the places you visit. This immersive experience often leads to more meaningful connections with local people, traditions, and customs.

Additionally, slow travel significantly reduces the environmental impact associated with frequent travel, such as lower carbon emissions from less frequent flights or drives. This more relaxed pace of travel benefits the environment. It enhances your overall experience, allowing for a more thoughtful and fulfilling exploration of each destination.

Insider’s Tip: Choose a single destination or region and explore it thoroughly, using local transportation and enjoying off-the-beaten-path experiences.

Participate in Sustainable Activities

Engaging in low-impact activities is a key aspect of sustainable travel. Opting for experiences like hiking, biking, or kayaking allows you to enjoy and appreciate the natural beauty of your destination without contributing to pollution or resource depletion. These activities minimize your environmental footprint and provide a more intimate connection with nature. When selecting these experiences, consider those that offer educational insights into the local ecosystem or culture.

For example, guided nature walks can teach you about native wildlife and plant species, while cultural tours led by local experts can deepen your understanding of the area’s history and traditions. By choosing environmentally friendly and informative activities, you enrich your travel experience and support sustainable tourism practices that prioritize the health of our planet and its diverse ecosystems.

Insider’s Tip: Join guided eco-tours that focus on environmental education and conservation efforts. These tours provide insights into local sustainability practices and often contribute directly to conservation efforts.

Eat Locally Sourced Food

Eating locally sourced food while traveling is an opportunity to enjoy authentic flavors and dishes and an effective way to reduce your environmental impact. Food that is locally sourced hasn’t undergone long-distance transportation, which is a major contributor to carbon emissions. By opting for meals made with local ingredients, you reduce the demand for transported goods and your carbon footprint.

Furthermore, eating locally supports farmers and producers, contributing to the local economy and community. This approach allows you to experience the region’s culinary culture more intimately while supporting sustainable practices that benefit the environment and local livelihoods. It’s a simple yet impactful way to make your travel more environmentally friendly and culturally enriching.

Insider’s Tip: Visit local markets or farm-to-table restaurants to enjoy fresh, regional produce. This helps reduce transportation emissions associated with food and offers the chance to experience the region’s culinary culture more authentically.

Stay in Sustainable Accommodation

Choosing accommodations committed to sustainability is a significant step in responsible travel. Nowadays, many hotels and hostels are adopting eco-friendly practices, and by selecting these establishments, you’re actively supporting and encouraging the growth of green tourism. Look for places that utilize solar energy, which reduces reliance on fossil fuels, or those with effective water conservation measures, essential in areas facing water scarcity.

Recycling programs, use of eco-friendly materials, and efforts to reduce food waste are other green initiatives to consider. By opting to stay in such accommodations, you not only lessen your environmental impact but also help to drive demand for sustainable practices on the broader tourism industry. This consumer choice sends a strong message to the market about the importance of environmental responsibility, influencing more establishments to adopt similar practices.

Insider’s Tip: Look for eco-certifications or awards when booking accommodations, which often indicate a genuine commitment to environmental responsibility.

The Bottom Line

Sustainable travel is more than just being a responsible tourist; it’s about being a conscious global citizen and making choices that reduce our environmental impact while enhancing the well-being of local communities. By adopting these best practices, you become part of a growing movement that values environmental preservation, cultural respect, and the vitality of the communities and environments you visit.

This thoughtful approach to travel ensures that your experiences are enriching for you and beneficial for the planet. Choosing eco-friendly transportation, supporting local businesses, respecting natural habitats, and making mindful food and accommodation choices contribute to a healthier planet. Sustainable travel isn’t just about reducing harm; it’s about actively contributing to positive change, creating a ripple effect beyond your individual journey. 

As you explore the world, remember that every small action counts towards preserving the world’s beauty and diversity for future generations to explore and enjoy. Your choices can lead to meaningful experiences that align with sustainability principles, ensuring that the wonders remain for future generations to appreciate.

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The post 12 Best Practices for Sustainable Travel in 2024 – How to Travel with Minimal Environmental Impact republished on Passing Thru with permission from The Green Voyage .

Featured Image Credit: Shutterstock / Day2505.

For transparency, this content was partly developed with AI assistance and carefully curated by an experienced editor to be informative and ensure accuracy.

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