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Corporate travel drives up to 20% of global air travel emissions: why businesses must take a stand
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Corporate travel drives up to 20% of global air travel emissions: why businesses must take a stand
The travel industry is often described as a hard-to-abate sector. Its heavy reliance on fossil fuels and extensive global supply chains make decarbonization uniquely challenging. But that also means the potential impact of change is enormous.
Aviation alone accounts for around 2,5% of global CO₂ emissions, making it the most climate-intensive form of travel - and its total warming effect is even higher, closer to 3.5% when contrails and other non-CO₂ effects are included. Business travel alone is estimated to account for about 15-20% of air travel emissions globally and 25-30% at European level.
In other words, companies have more influence over aviation’s climate footprint than many realize.
Yet most businesses still treat travel emissions as an afterthought. Few measure them. Even fewer set reduction targets. And fewer still act. That needs to change — fast.
Source: Travel Smart Ranking - 2024 edition, Transport & Environment
Business travel is projected to rise — and so are emissions
After the unprecedented slowdown during the COVID-19 pandemic, business travel is rebounding. According to the Global Business Travel Association’s Annual Business Travel Index Outlook Report, global business travel spending is projected to reach a record $1.57 trillion USD by 2025. Growth is forecast to continue in 2026 and beyond, despite trade tensions, policy uncertainty, and economic volatility.
What’s most concerning is that a relatively small group of people drive a disproportionately large share of these emissions. Business travelers make up only 12% of passengers in Europe, yet account for around 30% of all aviation demand, because corporate flyers are much more likely to be frequent flyers. Globally, the top 1% of the population accounts for more than 50% of commercial aviation emissions.
This imbalance highlights both the problem and the opportunity: if businesses act to reduce unnecessary travel, the impact will be dramatic.
Source: "85% of global companies don’t have credible plans to reduce corporate flying emissions", 2023, Travel Smart
The reporting gap
Despite this, most companies are not reporting on their business travel emissions. A 2023 study by Transport & Environment found that 85% of global corporations have no credible plans to reduce emissions from corporate flying.
In the updated 2025 travel smart ranking, progress is evident, with business travel emissions reduced by 34% since 2019. Global multinationals are flying less, but a significant barrier remains: 44% of the 326 companies in the ranking still lack specific targets for business travel. This includes major emitters such as Google, Apple, JPMorgan Chase, and Bosch.
Companies that establish specific targets for air travel have achieved an average emissions reduction of 48%, compared to just 28% for those without targets. The ranking reveals a clear pattern: when companies measure their emissions and commit to reduction targets, progress follows. However, those that do not take action continue to jeopardize overall progress.
Even among those that do report, the full climate impact often remains hidden. Most companies focus only on CO₂, while neglecting non-CO₂ effects like contrails and nitrogen oxides — factors that roughly double aviation’s warming impact. Denise Auclair, corporate travel manager at T&E, put it starkly:
“Corporates are turning a blind eye to the harms done by flying for work. Most companies are taking little to no action on business flying, which renders any other travel targets meaningless in the context of tackling climate change.”
Regulators are beginning to close this gap. Under the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), thousands of companies will soon be required to disclose their full climate impacts, including Scope 3 emissions such as business travel. However, the 2025 “Omnibus” package has delayed reporting timelines for many companies and could narrow the scope significantly, sparking concerns that the directive’s impact will be weakened. The Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) also explicitly calls on companies to measure and reduce their travel-related emissions as part of science-based climate targets.
Meanwhile, organizations and initiatives like Transport & Environment, and it's Travel Smart Campaign, the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT)'s Vision 2050, and the World Resources Institute (WRI)'s Science Based Targets Initiative are urging companies to act faster — not just to measure emissions, but to set ambitious reduction goals aligned with the Paris Agreement.
Without measurement and transparency, companies cannot set baselines, track progress, or take meaningful steps toward reduction.
Top 25 global flyers failing to reduce business travel emissions, 2023, Travel Smart
Why this matters
Aviation is already one of the fastest-growing sources of emissions. Between 1990 and 2019, both passenger and freight demand quadrupled. In Europe alone, aviation traffic grew 67% between 2005 and 2019, pushing emissions upward by 24%, at a time when they urgently needed to fall. Projections suggest aviation emissions could rise another 38% by 2050 if left unchecked.
Efficiency gains have helped - new aircraft designs, better aerodynamics, and higher load factors mean airplanes today are more than twice as energy efficient as they were in 1990. But the fuel hasn’t changed. Jet fuel is still kerosene, and burning one ton of it still produces 3.16 tons of CO₂. Biofuels and other alternatives make up only a tiny fraction of global demand.
This is why business travel emissions are such a critical piece of the puzzle. They may represent a small share of global emissions overall, but they are highly concentrated, disproportionately large, and relatively easy to influence. A 2023 report by The Travel Smart Campaign - a global initiative led by Transport & Environment - found that if the 10% biggest-emitting companies reduced their business travel by 50%, it would cover half of the global target for reducing corporate air travel emissions by 2025. This shows just how decisive corporate action can be: a relatively small group of companies holds the power to make a major dent in aviation’s climate footprint.
The science is clear: the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warns that deep, rapid cuts are needed now to keep warming within 1.5°C. Continuing business-as-usual travel patterns is not compatible with that goal.
www.transportenvironment.org/topics/planes/corporate-travel
The business case for action
The good news? Companies don’t have to wait for airlines or governments to act. Business travel emissions are one of the few levers that organizations can directly control — and ignoring them comes with rising financial, regulatory, and reputational risks. The case for action is clear:
💚 Reputation, employee preferences and stakeholder trust
According to IBM’s 2022 consumer-and-employee research, sustainability expectations are reshaping corporate reputations: 67% of respondents say they’re more willing to apply for, and 68% more willing to accept, jobs at organizations viewed as environmentally sustainable. Executives recognize that acting on sustainability builds stakeholder trust—yet, despite 86% of companies having a strategy, only 35% have actually started implementing it.
💚 Regulatory pressure
Regulation is catching up fast. Aviation now falls under the EU Emissions Trading System - a system that sets a cap on total CO₂ for certain sectors. Meanwhile, the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive mandates that thousands of companies report Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions - including business travel - as part of standardized, auditable disclosures. At the same time, the Science Based Targets initiative requires companies to inventory and target Scope 3 emissions—96% of its validated targets now include them—and mandates Scope 3 goals for companies where those emissions account for 40% or more of their total footprint.
💚 Cost & market dynamics
In Europe, almost a third of corporate trips involve rail (32% on the last trip, compared to 36% by air), highlighting rail’s strong role in business travel. The rise of low-cost airlines - holding over 20% of total seat capacity - continues to keep flying competitively cheap. Where high-speed rail is available, however, the balance is shifting. On the Paris–Lyon corridor, the launch of TGV services lifted rail’s market share from 40% to 72%, while air fell from 31% to 7%. On the Madrid–Seville route, rail now accounts for 80% of combined rail-air traffic, rising to 89% just a few years after the AVE service was introduced. For companies, these trends show that supporting alternative transport options like rail is not only the more sustainable option but often the smarter financial and strategic choice as well.
💚 Future resilience
Fossil-based travel is only getting more expensive. Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) still makes up just 0.3% of global supply and costs 3–10× more than kerosene. Under the EU’s ReFuelEU mandate airlines are required to start blending in 2% SAF by 2025, reaching 70% by 2050, with penalties up to 2× the cost of compliance (according to Article 12(4), ReFuelEU Aviation (Regulation (EU) 2023/2405). In Spain alone, this will add €234 million Euros in costs from 2025. For companies, reducing reliance on flights now means avoiding escalating travel costs later. Building resilience also means shielding operations from fuel volatility, regulatory shocks, and reputational risks—securing long-term stability in an uncertain market.
💚 Investor confidence
The financial community is watching. Global sustainable investment already represents over $30 trillion in assets under management, according to the Global Sustainable Investment Alliance's 2022 review.
...and demand continues to surge: between January and November 2020 alone, $288 billion was invested globally in sustainable assets — a 96% increase over all of 2019. Investors are not only confident in the performance of sustainable investments but are also willing to accept slightly lower returns to align with their values. In fact, 83% of personal investors say they will invest, divest, or lobby fund managers in the next 12 months based on sustainability factors, with climate change ranking as a top driver.
💚 Climate stability is business stability
Finally, no company thrives in a destabilized climate. Rising temperatures, extreme weather, and disrupted supply chains represent systemic risks to the global economy. Reducing emissions from business travel is part of safeguarding not just brand reputation, but the economic conditions in which businesses themselves can continue to operate.
➡️ In short: business travel is not a side issue. It’s a reputational risk, a financial liability, and a strategic blind spot if left unaddressed. But for companies that step up, it’s also an opportunity to cut costs, future-proof operations, and demonstrate real climate leadership in a sector where action is both urgently needed and highly visible.
💪 A call to action
Written by Josefine Bovbjerg for Goodwings
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