In a way, identifying trends in sustainability is part and parcel of BTN’s methodology for identifying and making directional air volume estimates for the companies that ultimately land on the annual Corporate Travel 100. When travel emissions increase, so too is the likelihood that air travel is on the upswing—and this bears weight in BTN’s estimates.
For a number of companies in this year’s CT100—and it was more than a handful—business travel emissions met or even exceeded pre-pandemic baselines. That’s not to say, however, that every company with travel emissions on the rise had abandoned their emissions-reduction strategies. Some companies may have changed their methodologies, while others had experienced acquisitions and other significant growth. Several companies in the CT100 this year established, re-established or validated their Science Based Target initiatives in 2024, tightened their data reporting strategies and some managed to keep emissions in check even as travel volume grew.
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WANT TO LEARN MORE ABOUT ACTUAL SUCCESSES IN BUSINESS TRAVEL SUSTAINABILITY? Business Travel Show America has you covered with an in-person meeting of the BTN Sustainability Community to support your efforts. JOIN IN. Wednesday, Oct 15 @ 12:20 PM
- 1:20 PM (buyer-only session).
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Travel-oriented sustainability strategies in play in the CT100 ranged from carbon offsets to investing in sustainable aviation fuel to implementing carbon budgets and carbon fees. The latter two strategies, in particular, seemed to play a higher-profile role for the companies that had them in place. The funding captured from carbon fees went to high-quality offsetting projects and to participation in SAF investments. Travel avoidance, restricting one-day trips and implementing modal change from air to rail all played into larger travel sustainability efforts as well. The latter has the capability to significantly reduce air spend in certain regions, but not so much in the United States.
Consulting companies like Deloitte at No. 2, EY at No. 11, BCG at No. 14 and others perhaps leaned most heavily into sophisticated sustainability strategies as what looks like more of an industry standard than has developed in some other verticals. With the materiality of business travel emissions very significant in the travel-intensive consulting world, it makes sense that such firms are controlling carbon output as they need to align with their own clients’ emissions targets; plus, tools they develop can be and have been offered to clients.
Technology, financial services and life sciences companies also held the line on sustainability strategies for the most part, and some went deeper into their efforts. Microsoft at No. 16, Bank of America at No. 26, and AstraZeneca at No. 75are good examples. The tech and finance companies are leaders in SAF investment, while AZ was looking to policies, behavior changes and modal change to effect emissions reductions.
This year, however, certain companies’ approach to travel sustainability—and in a few companies, Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) strategies overall—took some dramatic turns. Lockheed Martin at No. 10 abandoned its travel sustainability efforts in favor of other, more material, categories. Morgan Stanley at No. 23 exited the UN-backed Net Zero Banking Alliance but reaffirmed its goal of net-zero financed emissions by 2050. GSK at No. 78 kept its environmental efforts in play but abandoned diversity targets for both its workforce and supplier strategies following changes in U.S. government policy.
____________________________________________________________________
WANT TO LEARN MORE ABOUT ACTUAL SUCCESSES IN BUSINESS TRAVEL SUSTAINABILITY? Business Travel Show America has you covered with an in-person meeting
of the BTN Sustainability Community to support your efforts. JOIN IN. Wednesday, Oct 15 @ 12:20 PM
- 1:20 PM (buyer-only session).
___________________________________________________________________