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How to create a sustainable travel policy for businesses

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. 

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Sustainable Business Travel Policy and Best Practices

Sustainability in the scope of travel comes up most frequently in the context of “sustainable tourism,” minimizing the negative and maximizing the positive impact. On the corporate side of travel , business needs to drive destination and timing, and focus has long been on minimizing other concerns, such as cost and traveler inconvenience.

However, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, sustainable business travel began emerging as a very strong topic of interest for both companies and vendors. While sustainability took a backseat to more immediate concerns in 2020, as business travel swells back, more and more corporate travel programs are looking to not only engage with sustainable business travel policies but for concrete data and actions.

Vendors, anticipating this need, have likewise been taking steps to showcase sustainability data. There is a substantial gap, though, between the data companies are looking for and what vendors have available—in many cases coming down to estimate versus actuality.

What Is Sustainable Business Travel Policy?

Sustainable business travel policies often start with Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emission reporting and whether a company discloses theirs, for example, in annual sustainability reports, industry updates. Increasingly, KesselRun’s clients are reporting that their employees find it important to work for a company that prioritizes sustainability and that their own customers or clients have sustainability goals they expect these organizations to meet. Sustainability has become a talking point in sales and customer conversations, as well as part of a business’s social and environmental role in their community. 

The new expectation for vendors is to be able to provide total CO2lbs and miles, but traditional data is in fact providing estimates — TMC data, both at time of booking and post-trip, reflects these estimates, never reconciling what actually occurred during the flight. The estimates provided may or may not take into account aircraft type or class of service, but will not take into account actual load factors of the flight and/or seasonality and wind speeds. 

When turning to the airline themselves to provide more specifics, generally, these reports exist more on an on-request basis, many in beta or in summary form, and often still ‘estimate only’. Airline partners should expect more sustainability report availability over the next few years.

Hotel emission information remains even more elusive. Preferred hotel chains may be able to provide a certain level of insight for an organization’s preferred stays but are unlikely to offer further detail, and 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 right now, as actual mileage driven can be provided by rental car partners. With that said, organizations should still be aware even car 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 be, skewing even that picture.

Amid this ongoing ambiguity on the data remains uncertainty on actions. Are corporations going to try to prohibit charters or first-class flights, particularly for travelers already accustomed to either, to lower emissions?  

A sustainable business travel policy is where companies’ intentions and reality should meet. We are seeing organizations look to add sustainability guidelines into their official travel policies, recognizing that it may require more development across the industry to be able to enforce these policies or make the language stronger surrounding sustainability goals.

How to Create a Sustainable Business Travel Policy

The first step is to make sure your organization has clearly defined, scientific-based goals, for example ‘are you focused on Scope 1, 2, or 3 emissions?’, and then to look at whether these goals are public within your organization and if travelers understand how their travel relates to those goals.

Travel education around sustainability is key to achieving these policy goals, but in order to reach that stage, companies need to address wide-scoping 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 2019 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 2022 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.

Cara Cotter has been a corporate travel business consultant for seven years. She is accustomed to wearing many hats and changing gears at the drop of one.

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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 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 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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Ask the Expert: Sustainable travel policies

Dana Moore, Agiito Proposition Manager Air, Ancillary and Sustainability, shares her expertise on making sustainability a key part of your travel policy

What are the benefits of having a sustainable travel policy?

A sustainable business travel policy not only influences an organisation’s carbon footprint reduction but also provides employees with the right support and information to carry out their duties safely and effectively, and taking into consideration supply chain due diligence, duty of care, carbon budgeting, environmental impacts and wellbeing.

Why is stakeholder engagement so important?

In today’s environmentally-conscious society, stakeholders – customers, investors and employees – expect organisations to be transparent about their environmental practices. Reporting emissions from business travel is a crucial step towards meeting these expectations. It demonstrates a company’s commitment to sustainability and can enhance its reputation among stakeholders.

ESG regulations are evolving all the time. What does this mean for business travel?

Today, many organisations operating in the EU or UK are already reporting on their scope 1-3 emissions, which includes precise emissions across their full supply chain and detailed plans of how they are going to reduce them this decade. The UK has already made significant progress in this area with the introduction of various reporting frameworks, which provide guidelines and standards for companies to report on their ESG performance, ensuring transparency, consistency, governance, and cross industry comparability.

By embracing corporate disclosure reporting, organisations enhance their reputation and can also attract responsible investors and consumers. It enables investors to make informed decisions, directing their investments towards organisations that align with their values and contribute to a greener, more sustainable future.

What can I do to encourage more sustainable behaviours?

Having the right communication strategy in place is key to educating travellers on the negative impact frequent travel has on both the environment and wellbeing, empowering them to choose more sustainable carbon alternatives. This not only generates cost and carbon savings, but also improves employee work-life balance and overall wellbeing.

How can TMCs support customers?

Traditional business travel often comes with a significant carbon footprint due to air travel, hotel stays and transportation. TMCs can actively promote and offer sustainable travel options to their customers, track and report sustainability metrics and collaborate with sustainable suppliers, supporting their customers to monitor their progress towards sustainability goals and identify areas for improvement.

By incorporating these strategies, TMCs can become valuable partners in helping customers achieve their sustainability objectives. TMCs, their customers and suppliers should come together to help transform the travel industry into a more sustainable and responsible sector.

What are your top tips for more sustainable travel?

Maximise the efficiency of each journey by combining multiple meetings or events into one trip to reduce the overall carbon emissions and support traveller wellbeing. 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).

Look for hotels or accommodations that prioritise sustainability, such as those with energy-efficient practices, waste reduction initiatives, and eco-friendly amenities and green credentials.

Whenever possible, explore virtual meeting options like video conferences or webinars. This reduces the need for travel altogether and saves time and resources. Consider offsetting the residual carbon emissions from your business travel by investing in verified nature-based, green technology and SAF carbon offset projects. This helps neutralise the environmental impact of your travel.

Dana Moore is Proposition Manager Air, Ancillary and Sustainability for travel management company Agiito

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Top 4 ways to power up your sustainable business travel policy

By Paljor Lama, Senior Consultant, Traveler Engagement

After many unexpected challenges over the past couple of years, we now find ourselves confronted with a new travel landscape where much of the industry has evolved.

Short-term challenges, such as limited availability and travel disruptions, as well as long-term impacts, such as hybrid and virtual work arrangements, are showing us that business travel has and will continue to change.

One of the biggest changes we’ve seen is the shift to prioritizing sustainability in corporate travel programs as part of larger companywide sustainability initiatives. Incorporating sustainability into your business travel policy is vital to minimizing carbon emissions, but today it’s also critical to expand the meaning of sustainability in your policy to include your travelers’ well-being .

Here are four things you may want to consider incorporating into your business travel policy today to power up your program and ensure sustainability is part of your business travel DNA.

1. Educate your travelers about sustainability and help them understand the truth behind today’s biggest sustainability trends to ensure your efforts make an impact.

There’s a lot of information about sustainability, but do your travelers know which decisions make the biggest impact? For example, many travelers don’t consider the environmental impact of the type of hotel they book. However, a resort can use up to 2X as much water per room per day than a regular hotel. That’s actually 8X more water than what an average European uses per day! Help them navigate the sea of information with actionable insights in your travel policy, enabling them to see past sustainability myths.

2. Highlight your organization’s sustainability efforts in the travel policy.

Whether travel is a big contributor to your organization’s carbon emissions or plays a small role, highlight how every decision travelers make impacts your sustainability goals. Educate travelers on how travel affects all facets of your organization’s success – environmental, financial, moral, etc. – and how the pieces of this puzzle come together. Understanding the bigger picture will motivate employees to act like owners and make optimal decisions.

3. Incorporate diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) best practices into your travel policy.

Reinforce an internal culture of belonging and safety by incorporating DE&I into your policy in the following ways:

• Allow additional provisions to travelers with special needs, such as pregnant travelers and travelers with protected characteristics.
• Consider a color-blind palette and providing the policy in audio format for the visually impaired.
• Encourage philanthropic support and long-term partnerships with non-profit organizations that advocate for racial justice and equity. This could be done through RFP processes/vendor selections.
• Increase minority representation among vendors, partners, and collaborators.
• Encourage travelers to give back during business trips (e.g., volunteering in travel destinations).
• Provide guidance around cultural acceptance for your top countries covering areas like religion, appearance, etiquette, LGBTQ+ destinations, security advice and more.
• Host DE&I travel forums, offering two-way communication about the company’s efforts and potential areas for improvement.
• Provide traveler-specific training sessions for groups such as LGBTQ+, solo travelers and female travelers.

Download our latest report

Explore the cutting-edge strategies Advito’s using today to help clients build a sustainable business travel program.

4. Promote traveler satisfaction by highlighting the perks they receive.

Strongly promote supplier benefits your travelers receive for being part of the program. Consider allowing them to use loyalty points and membership benefits for personal/leisure travel. Promote incorporating leisure into a work trip. In 2022, half of all business travelers are likely to add leisure elements to their business trips.

Expanding the definition of sustainability in your travel policy to include not only your carbon initiatives, but also  including employee satisfaction, retention and business longevity, will make your policy an integral tool in achieving your organization’s global goals. It’s important to ensure you are structuring your program to encompass all parts of the environmental, social and governance (ESG) framework beyond just thinking about emissions.

MORE CONTENT JUST FOR YOU

How to create a best-in-class business travel policy, mastering hotel sourcing: 6 sustainability metrics to consider beyond carbon.

Sustainable travel policy: How to build one?

• Business Travel
• 11 March 2022

Creating and implementing a sustainable travel policy takes a few minutes. However, for real results in reducing your carbon emissions, simple strategies can be adopted. This article will help you define your sustainability and business travel goals.

How to establish a successful sustainable travel policy?

Create and implement a sustainable travel policy

Is your goal to reduce your environmental and therefore carbon impact? Starting with your business travel carbon footprint is a fantastic start to achieving this goal. Indeed, there are a few boundaries that can easily be set to help business travellers make greener decisions. So developing a travel policy for more sustainable trips is not complicated.

Check out our example of a customisable travel policy.

Implementing easy strategies

First of all, for a successful travel policy, simple strategies must be established. Indeed, the most important thing is that it is adopted by employees and therefore easy to implement. Here are some best practices for sustainable travel for your business trips:

• For a certain duration and distance, make train travel compulsory or give it preference over air travel.
• If flying is necessary, favour direct flights.
• For long-haul journeys, identify as many airlines as possible that use recent aircraft, as they are theoretically more fuel-efficient. Two examples to consider when making your list of preferred airlines are: use of biofuels and a carbon offset programme.
• Encourage your business travellers to use public transport in town.
• When renting a car or taking a taxi, recommend electric or hybrid cars.
• When it comes to car travel, company carpooling is a good way to not only bring employees together on business trips but also to reduce their carbon footprint. Why carpool in your company?

These ideas for sustainable best practice are highly recommended when setting up your travel policy. We recommend that you communicate these practices in real time through an automatic notification system with a business travel application like Ayruu.

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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.

Free Sustainable Travel Policy Template

Looking to implement a sustainable travel policy? Don’t know where to start? Download our free sustainable travel policy template in Word format for easy editing or keep reading to learn more about what to include.

Fill out the form below to receive the Sustainable Travel Policy Template:

Why You Need a Sustainable Travel Policy

Corporate travel has long been an essential aspect of doing business, enabling companies to forge new partnerships, attend conferences, and explore growth opportunities worldwide. However, in an era where environmental sustainability is at the forefront of global concerns, the impact of frequent business travel on the environment cannot be ignored. As a result, adopting a sustainable corporate travel policy has become imperative for organisations aiming to balance growth with responsible environmental stewardship.

The Impact of Corporate Travel on the Environment

Carbon footprint and emissions, benefits of a sustainable corporate travel policy, cost savings.

Implementing a sustainable corporate travel policy can lead to cost savings in the long run. Encouraging virtual meetings and alternative travel options can reduce expenses related to airfare, accommodation, and transportation.

Positive Public Image

Companies that embrace sustainable practices tend to garner positive public perception. A commitment to environmental responsibility through a well-defined travel policy can attract eco-conscious customers and investors.

Employee Satisfaction

Promoting sustainable travel options can also improve employee satisfaction. Many professionals value eco-friendly initiatives and prefer working for companies that align with their personal values.

Key Elements Of A Sustainable Corporate Travel Policy

Encouraging alternatives to travel.

A sustainable travel policy should use the travel hierarchy to prioritise digital communication and active travel whenever possible. By reducing unnecessary carbon-intensive travel, companies can significantly reduce their environmental impact.

Promoting Green Accommodations

Selecting environmentally responsible accommodations, such as eco-friendly hotels or certified sustainable lodgings, can further contribute to a sustainable corporate travel policy.

Offsetting Carbon Emissions

Companies can consider offsetting their carbon emissions by investing in renewable energy projects or participating in carbon offset programs such as  Trees4Travel . This proactive approach demonstrates a commitment to environmental conservation.

Strategies For Implementing A Sustainable Corporate Travel Policy

Employee education and training.

Properly educating employees about the importance of sustainable travel and providing training on green practices can foster a culture of environmental responsibility within the organisation.

Partnering with Environmentally Responsible Suppliers

Collaborating with travel partners and suppliers that share the same commitment to sustainability can reinforce a company’s green initiatives.

Monitoring and Reporting

Regularly monitoring and reporting the impact of the sustainable corporate travel policy can help track progress and identify areas for improvement.

Case Studies Of Successful Corporate Travel Policies

Several companies have already adopted sustainable corporate travel policies, using our Online Booking Tool to assess the carbon footprint of not just our air travel, but also your hotel and offering rail alternatives before you book allowing for informed choices.

Challenges And Solutions In Adopting Sustainable Practices

Resistance to change.

Implementing a sustainable corporate travel policy may face resistance from employees accustomed to traditional travel practices. Effective communication and incentives can help overcome this challenge.

Integrating Sustainability with Business Goals

Finding a balance between environmental goals and business objectives may present a challenge. Integrating sustainability into the overall business strategy is key to success.

The Future Of Sustainable Corporate Travel

Technological Innovations

Advancements in technology will continue to reshape the way businesses operate and interact. Virtual reality, augmented reality, and other technologies could further reduce the need for physical travel.

Global Collaborations

As sustainability becomes a global priority, collaborative efforts between governments, businesses, and organisations will lead to more comprehensive and effective sustainable travel policies.

A sustainable corporate travel policy is not just a necessity for environmental conservation; it is also a strategic advantage for businesses in the long run. By adopting eco-friendly travel practices, companies can cut costs, enhance their reputation, and align with the growing environmental concerns of customers and stakeholders.

Frequently Asked Questions​

Yes, any business that engages in corporate travel can benefit from a sustainable travel policy, regardless of its size or industry.

 No, it covers all aspects of corporate travel, including ground transportation, accommodation, and alternative travel options.

 There are various online calculators and tools available to estimate and track carbon emissions from corporate travel including our own MI reporting tool.

 Yes, promoting sustainable practices can enhance employee satisfaction and improve retention rates.

Encouraging telecommuting, reducing single-use items during travel, and opting for eco-friendly accommodations are some quick and impactful changes.

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5 reasons your company needs a sustainable travel policy

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

What is a sustainable travel policy?

Many businesses are experiencing levels of travel that are exceeding pre-pandemic levels. Added to that, they're also trying to reduce their carbon footrprint in line with climate targets and Net Zero goals. A sustainable travel policy can provide the structure and education to help employees make more sustainable choices when they're on the road, but also help businesses manage their travel budgets and minimize their carbon footprint. The purpose of the sustainable travel policy is to minimize the negative impact that travel has on the environment, society, and local communities and promote a responsible approach to travel in general.  The overall aim of the sustainable travel policy is to balance the need for business-related travel with the goal of sustainability and responsible resource management.

Why you need a sustainable travel policy

1. It helps you control travel costs

With higher airfare and hotel rates to contend with, controlling travel budgets will continue to be a top priority for businesses of all sizes. Having a sustainable travel policy in place helps the finance team forecast and control spending while also giving a realistic picture of carbon emissions that will need to be reduced or offset. 2. It shows you're serious about sustainability:

The best way of showing that you’re serious about building sustainability into your culture is by turning pledges into action. For businesses who do not produce and sell goods (such as consultancy firms like PWC), business travel is responsible for a significant portion of their carbon emissions. Last year, PWC reported that travel made up 68% of their company's total carbon emissions , making it a major focus area for reductions. Overall, addressing your business travel can be a quick win and a good way of showing your employees (not to mention your competitors!) that it’s a priority area for your business. 3. It helps you keep track of your travel activity:

A more consistent and uniform approach to planning and booking travel will give you the data you need to establish travel trends and identify where to reduce your emissions. For example if you can see that long-haul trips are causing the bulk of your company’s emissions, you may decide that longer but less frequent trips would help to reduce the company’s climate impact. 4. It keeps your employees safe when they're abroad:

As an employer, you have a responsibility to ensure the safety and wellbeing of your employees when they're traveling on behalf of the company. A travel policy (whether it’s sustainable or not!) provides them with the tools they need in unpredictable situations, whether that’s a canceled flight, or a hospital visit.  5. It creates a level playing field for business travel:

The approach you use to ensure that pay conditions are fair for your employees - that same approach should be applied to travel. The last thing you want is to invite office gossip that someone got to fly business for a short-haul trip, when others didn't. Leveling the playing field will help eliminate any ambiguity around business travel.

Build your own sustainable travel policy with our free guide!

Ready to create your own sustainable travel policy? 

Download our free guide and start traveling smarter today!

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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!

Did you find this article useful.

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• 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.

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7 Step Guide to Writing a Business Travel Policy

Download the PDF eBook version

It’s common to assume that you might not need a business travel policy. Maybe your company is only just starting out, still in its early growth stage, or just doesn’t do much business travel.

That line of thinking couldn’t be more wrong, though.

A company travel policy isn’t something exclusive only to large businesses. Even small startups whose employees only travel twice a year can really benefit from having a solid corporate travel policy.

Corporate travel policies reduce time-wasting, repetitive, and redundant questions. It’s a place to turn to for convenient answers and guidance to ensure everything is on the up and up with the company.

Having a business travel policy in place helps foster fairness and transparency. It also provides employees with greater freedom and autonomy while maintaining corporate authority and management.

Most importantly, it also serves as a way to ensure the safety of your travellers, especially in today’s post-COVID world.

Now that we’ve established the need for a travel policy, how do you go about building one that employees would follow?

Creating, maintaining, and enforcing a company travel policy doesn’t mean micromanaging every last detail of your employee’s business trip. Instead, it means providing them with the tools and information they need to feel safe, comfortable, and supported by the company.

Moreover, many travel policies today centre around flexibility and providing employees with greater freedom to arrange their business travel.

Our guide will give you everything to do exactly that — we’ll discuss various travel management styles, provide tips for creating modern travel policies, and offer techniques to help increase compliance.

The Downside of Travel Policies

Anything connected to the word “policy” is often instantly deemed complicated and overwhelming. Company travel policies are no different. Travel arrangements and requirements can already be time-consuming and challenging to take in without adding company rules into the mix.

When we know what employees don’t like about their current business travel policy or what keeps them from fully using them, we can create policies that specifically avoid those issues.

4 Common Problems with Travel Policies

• The policies are too technical or difficult to understand.
• Almost no one bothers to read the policies due to their length.
• No one remembers the content of the policies.
• Companies don’t automatically enforce travel policies.

These issues contribute to a low policy compliance rate. A 2018 survey by Skift and Turkish Airlines showed that only 60% of business travellers follow their company’s travel policy, particularly when booking their accommodations.

Understanding the common problems with travel policies can help guide us in creating one that employees would want to use and appreciate.

Failure to heed these common problems can easily make all the effort we put into creating a great corporate travel policy to waste.

Don't have time to finish this guide now? Download the PDF eBook version

Why Build a Corporate Travel Policy?

The difficulty in creating and ensuring compliance with business travel policies might turn you away from putting any policy in place. You wouldn’t be the only one to think this way, either.

Sixty percent of companies in the U.S. don’t have a corporate travel policy in place.

However, in doing so, you can miss out on several important benefits — not just for employees but for your company.

Travel Policy Benefits for Travellers

• Clear rules and regulations
• Less hassle when making travel arrangements
• Fairness amongst the team
• Ensure safety and wellness
• Better flexibility and autonomy

Travel Policy Benefits for the Company

• Lessen travel cost spikes.
• Improve management over company travel expenses.
• Streamlined reimbursement protocol.
• Increased fairness helps foster better employee sentiment.
• Positive company culture.

Creating a business travel policy provides you and your company with clear guidelines. This, in turn, helps ensure fairness and equality for everyone.

A Step by Step Guide to Writing a Business Travel Policy

Now that we’ve had a better perspective on travel policy dos, don’ts, and the benefits, it’s time to focus on writing one.

Here is a quick look at our seven-step, fool-proof process for writing a modern business travel policy:

1. Review existing or previous travel policies

Similar to how we took a look at the dos, don’ts, and benefits, it is also important to review old or existing policies.

2. Outline policy goals and identify stakeholders

In any project or undertaking, it is best to start with clear goals and priorities. Regardless of whether you choose to focus on reducing confusion or limiting travel expenses, you and your team should be clear on what the policy’s focus should be.

During this stage, it's important to involve all of the right people. This will help ensure the fairness and appropriateness of your travel policy.

3. Ensure it’s easy for everyone to use the policy

As early as now, think of a way to make using your travel policy convenient for everyone who may need it — whether they are rank and file employees, supervisors, or executives.

This will help ensure that everyone is aware of the new policy, where they may access it, and how to use it.

4. Decide on the travel management style or strictness

Before you can create the travel policy’s rough draft, it is important to choose your travel management style. Along with this, you also need to determine your level of strictness.

These two factors will help ensure that all parts of your policy are in line with each other. They will help when making decisions regarding individual rules, tools, and more.

5. List down what to include in the travel policy

After working through your travel management style and strictness, start brainstorming what you want to include in the document. You can use an old travel policy or a successful one from a competitor as a reference for what to and not to include.

6. Create the first draft

Finalise the list of things your travel policy needs to have, then start writing the first draft. There are templates available online that may help make finishing this stage easier and faster.

7. Implement the travel policy

Expect your first draft to go through several revisions. However, once the final version has been approved by the management, make sure to share it with the whole company.

Immediate, company-wide implementation and briefing on how any travel management tool you use is necessary to encourage adoption and full compliance.

A Detailed Dive into the Writing Process

The outline we provided is only a brief look into what you should expect to do for each step. In the following sections, we will dive deeper into what each step would entail.

Review Your Current Travel Practices

What travel policy do you currently have in place? If you don’t have one, what are your employees’ travel practices? Answering these questions will help you get a better idea of what works, what employees prefer to do, and what to avoid.

It is best to do this with your company's major stakeholders, including the HR department, finance, and upper management. Having a few frequent business travellers join in the meeting would also prove helpful. If not, then asking your employees to answer a survey regarding your travel rules or practices may be a suitable alternative.

Set Your Policy Goals and Identify Stakeholders

A smart travel policy requires clear priorities and goals. These will give your writing purpose and steer you in the right direction. Additionally, it’s important to define the accepted business travel purposes so that all employees understand why it’s necessary and when they may be expected to go.

It’s also important to identify and notify your stakeholders. Ask yourself, who are the people whose input is necessary for the project? Who are the people whom your travel policy would affect?

Here is a list of people who should be involved in the creation of any travel policy:

• Human resource department
• The finance department (specifically the CFO and controller)
• CEO and COO
• Travel manager
• Office manager
• Frequent business travellers

These people are the most important ones to include in the discussions. They can either help write the document or be involved in its approval. After holding a kick-off meeting to establish priorities and goals, you can simply reach out to the stakeholders individually to minimise any disruptions in their regular duties.

A 3-Step Guide to Setting Future-Proof Priorities

Referring to your old travel policy (or your competitors’ if you don’t have one) will help you determine your priorities.

Step 1: List down what works in your teference travel program. This can be as simple as “travel expenses are exceptionally high in X city” or “employees still book flights or accommodations out of policy.”

Step 2: Set clear core goals. We recommend having two to three core goals for updating or creating a corporate travel policy. An example of a core goal could be “to meet the needs of a growing company or team.” Under each core goal, you can list down secondary or specific priorities.

Here are several basic travel policy priorities that most businesses share:

• Limit unnecessary travel expenses
• Improve transparency and visibility
• Boost employees’ travel autonomy
• Increase overall efficiency and satisfaction of business trips
• Reduce employee confusion
• Streamline manual work for the HR and administrative departments
• Improve traveler safety and duty of care
• Boost travel policy compliance
• Improve convenience in making travel arrangements

Step 3: Discuss upcoming changes in the business. Doing so will help you future-proof your travel policy, at least to a certain extent. Important changes to take note of include office consolidations, expanding to new locations or offices, hiring more people, and any potential long-distance business partners.

Ensure Every Employee Can Use the Travel Policy

There are two ways you can create your company travel policy. These are:

• Classic or traditional method: Providing employees with a hard copy or a PDF document of the policy handbook, a link to an intranet page, or publishing it on the company’s internal wiki page.
• Automated or in-app method: Customising a travel management platform according to your policies and providing access to the employees. This allows the company to automate business travel booking arrangements in real-time.

We also recommend combining these two methods. Having an easily accessible app automates the process but having a classic corporate policy document gives employees something to refer to in case they have questions.

Aside from publishing it internally through a company wiki page or intranet page, it’s also common to provide employees with a link to a shared file folder or PDF via cloud data services, like Google Drive for example.

Additionally, it is a good idea to provide new employees with either a hardcopy or digital file during the onboarding process.

All About Travel Management Platforms

One way to make sure that everyone in the company can use the travel policy you create is by using a travel management platform.

A travel management platform or system, also called corporate travel management software, helps improve travel coordination and booking processes. It is one of the most convenient ways to manage travel arrangements internally.

Instead of spending more time manually planning trips across different websites or platforms, you and your employees can simply use one system to manage everything. This includes finding the most affordable flights, the best accommodation locations, and even arranging reimbursements for canceled or missed flights.

We highly recommend choosing a travel management tool like Locomote (shameless plug) that allows you to incorporate and or create your travel policy in its system. This helps ensure automatic policy compliance.

Decide on the Travel Management Style and Strictness

It’s crucial to determine your travel management style and level of strictness before listing down what you want and need to include in the document.

Travel management style refers to how you want to structure your corporate travel arrangements. This essentially means deciding on whether to have a hands-on or hands-off approach.

Will an administrator or manager handle all the bookings? Or will you give employees the freedom and autonomy to choose their travel arrangements? Will the employees be allowed to extend official business trips to mix it with personal or leisurely travel?

As for the level of strictness, this mainly refers to the restrictions set on your chosen booking tool or travel management software.

For example, will the system still allow employees to make bookings outside of your set policies? Will they need a manager’s approval to do so? Will you require approval for all travel arrangements they make, even those that follow the company’s policies?

In deciding the style and strictness level, it’s crucial to seek the opinions of your stakeholders. The company executives, HR department, and Finance teams have the most say in this case.

Figure Out What to Include in the Travel Policy

So, what exactly goes into a corporate travel policy? It’s simple: anything and everything employees might want or need to know about traveling — both domestically and internationally.

Remember, the goal in building a business travel policy is to provide employees with a helpful reference in case they have questions. Here is an overview of some basic rules and modern guidelines:

Booking and Approval Process

• Who makes the airline and hotel bookings?
• What are the requirements for travel approval?
• What tools or platforms should employees use?

Travel Safety

• What type of travel insurance do employees get?
• Who is your duty of care vendors?
• What are your emergency procedures?
• Who is your employees’ point of contact in the company in case of travel emergencies?

Accommodation Expenses

• What is the maximum allowable spend per night?
• Are there different budgets for different cities?
• How can employees get corporate hotel rates when booking by themselves?
• Are employees allowed to book alternative accommodation, such as AirBnB?
• What types of alternative accommodation are allowed?
• Are there circumstances where alternative accommodation is not reimbursable?

Airline Travel Expenses

• What is the maximum allowable spend per domestic flight?
• What is the maximum allowable spend per international flight?
• Can employees book flights without approval?
• What is the required minimum amount of time to book in advance?

Ground Travel Expenses

• What are employees’ options for ground transportation?
• What are the company’s preferred modes of ground transportation?
• Is there a maximum cost per train ticket?
• What are the rules for renting vehicles?
• What are the rules for using personal vehicles?
• Are employees entitled to fuel and accommodation reimbursements for multi-day drives?

Food and Daily Allowance

• Will daily allowance be provided?
• What will it include and not include?
• What are the daily allowance limits?

Entertaining Clients

• What counts as client entertainment?
• What is the maximum cost per entertainment ticket?
• How much can employees spend without needing approval?
• What is the maximum spend per meal for clients?

Reimbursement Processes

• Until when can employees file for reimbursements?
• What purchases or expenses count as non-reimbursable?
• Who approves reimbursement claims?
• How should the reimbursement claims be submitted?
• How do employees submit expense reports?

Leisure Trip Extensions

• Does the company allow “bleisure” or business leisure travels?
• What counts as business leisure trip extensions?
• Will the company shoulder accommodation extensions?
• Will employees continue to receive an allowance during leisure trip extensions?

Create Your First Business Travel Policy Draft

The key to creating a business travel policy that employees would find helpful and gladly follow is to always put the employees’ needs first.

Moreover, make sure you take into account the current size of the company and its expected growth in the following years. Although the company may be limited to business trips to neighboring cities or states, for now, a fast-paced growth may require international travel in the following year or two.

As such, it’s important to try to include policies for everything the employees may experience in the future. Future-proofing your business travel policy allows you to keep it for a longer time and avoid rewriting it each year.

Get feedback from different people after finishing the first draft. If there are points that need to be revised, do so before submitting the first draft for management approval.

It’s normal for travel policy drafts to go through several rounds of revisions. Don’t be disheartened by these. Instead, use it as an opportunity to improve the policies and get actionable feedback from the people who would eventually use them.

Implement the Business Travel Policy

Once the travel policy is approved by the company executives and other stakeholders, you can start to share it with all the employees. We recommend having a town hall meeting to introduce the new policies and brief employees on the most important points.

Another way to improve policy implementation and compliance rates is by providing all employees with a copy of the document. You can do this through a company wiki page, an intranet page, a shared folder or file on the company cloud platform, or a printed booklet.

But how can you ensure employees will read the document?

The best tip we can give to boost policy read-through rates is to include the reimbursement information in the travel policy document. Everyone loves free stuff — and reimbursements count!

Including information that employees genuinely care about in your business travel policy increases the chances of them reading through the whole document.

How to Create an Automated Travel Policy in Locomote

After creating or updating your travel policy document, make sure to create an automated version, too. This is what will boost your travel policy’s compliance rate and further improve employee freedom and autonomy.

Locomote is one of the best business travel management platforms in the market. Our award-winning technology allowed us to help large and small companies streamline their travel programs.

Using our system, travel managers and employees can book, manage, track, and report in one convenient platform, globally.

Now that we’ve guided you on how to build a travel policy document, you can use it to set up an automated travel policy using the Locomote.

Benefits of Using Locomote

Locomote offers a wide variety of benefits for both businesses and employees, including the following:

• Clean and modern user interface
• Easy to navigate mobile app
• Transparent pricing
• Offers group booking
• Dedicated 24/7 travel support at no extra charge
• Allows employees to book their trips
• Real-time data reporting
• Per department budget limits
• Integrates with expenses or finance management tools
• Accepts multiple payment methods

In today’s post-pandemic world, business and leisure travel can still be quite tedious. As infection rates go up and down, and cities and states react accordingly, responding as fast as possible are necessary.

That is exactly what Locomote provides.

Using our platform, travel managers can easily make adjustments based on new travel restrictions and pandemic rates.

You can also adjust the settings based on the data our platform collects from all the travel bookings and costs reported.

How To Cut Travel Expenses Using Automated Travel Platforms

Thanks to our clients and their thousands of employees that use Locomote, we were able to gather enough data and find more ways to help businesses like yours cut down on travel costs.

• Booking flights at least a month or farther in advance if possible
• Providing access to low-cost airlines or carriers, such as Jetstar, EasyJet, Spirit Airlines, and more
• Offering flexible booking rates for easy cancellation or changes
• Setting caps for hotel costs and daily allowances
• Providing options for streamlined account reconciliation

All of these are possible through Locomote. Together with our per-trip pricing setup, exclusive rates, and discounts, companies can save up to 34% in total business travel costs.

Improving Your Corporate Travel Experience

Better business travel management equals a smoother overall travel experience. Help your employee travellers feel more empowered by giving them freedom while also optimising your travel policy.

See how we can optimise your travel program and make your company more efficient.

Click here to get a free, in-depth product demonstration and walkthrough.

How To Create a Sustainable Business Travel Policy

COVID-19 has modified or accelerated the way many companies do business. The most obvious area relates to working from home, but corporate travel has changed quite a bit, too.  More companies want meaningful, long-term, sustainable business travel. If you are thinking about creating such a policy for your business, here are some ideas and tips.

Sustainable Business Travel: Your Company’s Goals

Before diving into policy creation, clarify what the overarching point(s) of the policy will be. For example, is the policy mainly for cost savings or to promote both savings and employee health and satisfaction? Do environmental factors play a role? How much money would you want to save?

Answer questions such as these: What did business travel for the company look like five years ago? How about last year and now? Why did travel occur, and what were the outcomes? (For example, maybe one type of travel was to allow remote employees across the country to meet once a year to foster closer collaboration overall.) Who tended to travel where, stay where, and for how much and how long? Who handled bookings, expenses, reimbursements, and other financial matters? What did/does the business’s carbon footprint look like?

By having a clear idea of the current and past state of travel at your business, you can identify areas of strength and weakness. You can set a more defined path going forward and clarify goals such as, say, 20% business travel savings in the next year and 15% lower carbon emissions.

Seven Areas the Policy Should Cover

An effective policy for sustainable business travel touches on these seven areas.

1. Trip Length

Eliminate overnight one-day and two-day trips for the most part (whether they are via car, train, plane, or something else). Replace them with several trips combined into one or with virtual collaboration tools.

The policy could be that these shorter trips are, by default, not allowed unless they are essential (essential business travel is for employees whose duties are important for business continuity or infrastructure). Supervisor permission would be required if an employee wanted or needed to go on a short, nonessential trip.

2. Virtual Collaboration Tools

Most employees are already well-versed in virtual collaboration tools such as Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Google Docs. Overall, virtual collaboration resources fall into areas such as video conferencing, cloud storage, document synchronization, whiteboards, instant messaging, file sharing, and calendar sharing.

You may already have all of the tools you need to replace shorter trips and some longer trips, but do not assume you do. Ask the employees who travel what they like about the trips, what they get out of them, and which tools come closest to replicating these experiences and outcomes.

The final (for now) draft of your sustainable business travel policy should detail the virtual alternatives to travel, what they do, and how employees can get trained to use them if necessary. Explain how to host virtual meetings and how to keep them engaging and productive. For example, smaller groups (or breakout groups) encourage more participation, and hosts should learn everyone’s names in advance if possible.

3. Expenses and Reimbursement

Employees may still incur expenses even if they do not leave the office to travel. For example, maybe a group of employees needs a special software program for video conferencing. Encourage this type of usage and experimentation by detailing reimbursable expenses.

4. Include a Decision Tree

It is not always clear to employees whether they should stay in the office or travel. A sustainable business travel decision tree that explains rationales, consequences, and alternatives is helpful. 

For instance, you could suggest alternative meeting sites, more sustainable modes of travel or virtual collaboration tools instead of defaulting to what your company used to do that is more expensive and not environmentally friendly.

5. Focus On Lowering Carbon Emissions

A major way to lower carbon emissions is to prioritize train travel before plane travel when it makes sense. Trains are incredibly energy-efficient per passenger mile compared to cars and planes.

When travelers need to fly, they should try to fly direct instead of connecting. Newer planes are more environmentally friendly and burn less fuel. Boeing 787, Airbus 321 NEO, and the Airbus 350 are good planes for lowering carbon emissions.

When employees stay in another city, encourage the use of walking, biking, public transportation, and electrical vehicles. As for lodgings, seek out “green” hotels .

6. Employee Health and Morale

Sustainable business travel policies should also explain how employees benefit. The focus should not all be on the company and how it is trimming its bottom line and saving money. Highlight how less travel improves the work-life balance for employees and prevents the spread of illness. 

Travel is inevitable for some employees and job functions. Your policy should cover what to do when it does become necessary. For example, are there agencies, airlines, hotel chains, and the like you want employees to use? Or should they have someone else (explain who) coordinate their travel? Spell out these details clearly.

One option is the Rocketrip platform . We cut travel costs by 20% on average while boosting employee engagement and satisfaction. Three widgets, savings, sustainability, and safety, help companies when they book travel. The savings widget helps your business save money given the employee’s destination and activities there.

The sustainability widget explains which flights offer the best carbon offset. You can even view your employees’ travel history, review their carbon footprint, and see how it could be reduced. The safety widget focuses on all things COVID as well as other safety issues: any restrictions at the destination, COVID-19 testing and visa mandates, any breaking news there, and so on.

Approach the policy as a living document that is easy to adapt as financial, environmental, and global health conditions shift. Make it accessible to all employees, and listen to their feedback (good and bad) about their travels or lack thereof.

Start Sustainable Business Travel Today

Get in touch with Rocketrip today to explore your options for sustainable business travel. You can also watch a demo and download a case study.

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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.    

Download our green travel policy template for free!

• Schools & departments

Sustainable Travel Policy

The Sustainable Travel Policy sets out how all local, national and international travel taken on behalf of the University should take place. 

August 2024 update

The University updated the Sustainable Travel policy in August 2024. The changes made come into effect on 1 September 2024.

To read about these changes, visit the  Update on our Sustainable Travel Policy  SharePoint page.

This policy supports our 'Climate Conscious Travel' approach of:

• understanding the environmental impacts of travel and using lower-carbon methods of transport where possible
• minimising the overall number of journeys to reduce carbon emissions
• sequestering the carbon emissions from travel 

The policy is also designed to ensure the safety of our staff and students and better manage our finances.

If you need to book travel, visit the Booking Travel webpage.

If you have a question about how to follow the policy, visit our Booking Travel: FAQs (secured) webpage.

Understanding why we have developed a travel policy

Scope of the policy

Key policy principles

If you have a question or concern regarding the Sustainable Travel Policy, please email  [email protected] . 

Additional Information

Find out more about local transport between our campuses

Find out more about the Climate Conscious Travel Project