In 2025 the European Union scaled back its ambitious Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, a move that had direct consequences for travel managers. CSRD requires companies trading in the bloc to disclose their carbon emissions, including specifying those caused by business travel.
The European Commission set out the changes to CSRD in the Omnibus packages, a raft of simplification measures to "address overlapping, unnecessary or disproportionate rules that are creating unnecessary burden for EU businesses."
Companies with fewer than 1,000 employees and €50 million revenue are no longer required to make CSRD disclosures at all, although they may do so voluntarily. Larger businesses still must comply, but for some this has been deferred until 2028. The Commission also launched a review aimed at "substantially reducing the number of data points" that must be reported under CSRD. It remains unclear whether business travel disclosures will be affected.
The Commission declared the Omnibus packages were "building on the recommendations of the Draghi report," issued by Mario Draghi in September 2024. A former president of the European Central Bank (2011-2019, when he was inevitably dubbed "Super Mario" for his efforts to avert a crisis over the euro) and prime minister of Italy(2021-2022), Draghi had been tasked by Commission president Ursula van der Leyen with identifying how to revive the EU's flatlining economic competitiveness and productivity. Draghi identified, as van der Leyen no doubt wished, "inconsistent and restrictive regulations" as a leading culprit.
European governments have been wrestling with the conundrum of how to balance the drive towards to net zero with economic growth, especially when the remedy of populist governments elsewhere has been simply to ignore the first of those imperatives. The Commission argued that the Draghi-inspired Omnibus packages "can drive growth and quality jobs, boost investments and, ultimately, enable companies to embrace the transition to a sustainable economy."
Travel management representative groups were less convinced. German association VDR expressed unhappiness at the chopping and changing over CSRD, while the Global Business Travel Association worried companies might interpret the reforms as a "licence to slow down their efforts to track and reduce emissions—at a time when we need to redouble our commitment."