For many organisations, corporate travel now sits firmly on the ESG agenda.
Flights are often one of the largest contributors to Scope 3 emissions, making business travel impossible to ignore in sustainability reporting. Travel policies are increasingly scrutinised at board level, procurement teams are pushing airlines and hotels with tougher questions, and sustainability teams are demanding credible, verifiable data rather than marketing-led claims.
And yet, despite good intentions, many corporate travel programmes are still struggling to keep pace with what ESG expectations now require.
Reporting Has Improved. Strategy Often Hasn’t.
There is no question that progress has been made. Most large organisations today can produce a carbon footprint for flights and, increasingly, for hotel stays as well. Compared to where the industry was even a few years ago, this represents a significant step forward.
However, reporting alone does not equal strategy.
Across many travel programmes, sustainability still exists alongside travel rather than being embedded within it. There is often heavy reliance on carbon offsets, limited focus on reducing demand in the first place, and ESG data that is collected but rarely used to influence supplier selection, policy design, or traveller behaviour.
In many cases, emissions data is produced after travel has already taken place, offering little opportunity to shape decisions at the point where impact could actually be reduced.
Offsets aren’t a long-term answer on Their Own
Carbon offsetting has played an important role in the early stages of corporate climate action, particularly where direct emissions reductions were difficult to achieve. But confidence in voluntary carbon markets is mixed, and boards are becoming more cautious about sustainability claims that rely heavily on offsets.
Organisations are now asking more difficult questions around issues such as permanence, additionality, transparency, and regulatory risk. As scrutiny increases, it is becoming clear that offsets alone cannot carry the weight of long-term ESG commitments in corporate travel.
Where Travel Programmes Can Go Further
Meaningful progress comes when sustainability is built directly into how travel programmes operate.
This includes embedding ESG considerations into route selection, supplier choices, rail versus air decisions, cabin class policies, demand management frameworks, procurement scoring models, and RFP design. It also means using emissions data to actively influence decisions before travel happens, not just to report on it afterwards.
Many organisations are now exploring how residual travel emissions can be linked to long-term investment in nature recovery and climate resilience, rather than relying solely on the annual purchase of carbon credits.
A Bigger Opportunity for the Travel Industry
For travel advisers, TMCs, airlines, and hotels, the challenge is clear. The question is no longer just whether the industry can help companies account for impact, but whether it can support the redesign of travel programmes so that ESG genuinely shapes how travel is planned, purchased, and governed.
Those that can move beyond reporting and offsets, and instead enable real behavioural and structural change, will play a critical role in the next phase of corporate travel.
Final Thought
Corporate travel sits at the crossroads of cost, productivity, risk, and environmental impact.
The next phase of ESG in travel will not be defined by better dashboards alone. It will be driven by governance, behavioural change, procurement decisions, and long-term partnerships with nature and climate initiatives.
That is where meaningful and lasting progress will be made.
