The Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) and GBTA Foundation have committed to champion climate action for the business travel industry through education, research, and advocacy. 92% of business travel professionals say sustainability is a priority for their organization, and are calling for educational tools and industry standardization to support this paradigm shift. The urgent challenge of climate change necessitates that we “own” this issue and develop solutions that will allow us to continue to travel for the long term.

OUR APPROACH AND ACHIEVEMENTS TO DATE 

EDUCATION & CAPACITY-BUILDING

Since the launch of GBTA Sustainability Initiative in November 2021, GBTA educated over 5,000 travel buyers and suppliers through practical guidance and education resources, including:

• A Sustainability Toolkit to guide travel managers in their sustainability journey and outline the basics of managing, reducing, and tracking carbon emissions from business travel. 

• A Best Practice Report on ‘Managing Emissions from Business Travel Programs’ to highlight starting, advancing and leading practices implemented by companies

• A new GBTA Academy Sustainable Travel Management Course to empower travel professionals to advance climate-conscious business travel programs. 

• Two global Sustainability Summits in 2022 and 2023 that served as high-level multi-stakeholder forums to outline key challenges and common solutions to accelerate the green transition for business travel. 

• The launch of a Global Annual Barometer to evaluate and benchmark the state of sustainability in global business travel, with two reports now published. 

• Engagement with policymakers in Europe and the U.S. to establish a level playing field on emissions measurement and reporting and unlock multimodal travel options including better access to rail. 

GLOBAL HARMONIZATION

GBTA has been working collaboratively across the industry to launch standardized sustainable procurement criteria and pave the way for responsible travel procurement practices, which represent $1.357 trillion globally. 
There is a current lack of standardization on the sustainability attributes used for procurement in the business travel industry. While buyers are not sure what questions to ask (and what to do with the information collected), suppliers receive hundreds of different sustainability questionnaires where not all questions are material. 
In collaboration with business travel stakeholders, subject matter experts, and sustainability standard setters, GBTA is harmonizing and consolidating sustainability questions used in procurement for various business travel verticals so that corporate travel buyers can make procurement decisions that go beyond cost. This will ensure that corporate travel buyers have the tools to send a strong demand signal to their suppliers, ultimately moving the needle for sustainability in the industry. 

OUR COMMITMENT TO SCALE IMPACT 

As part of our commitment to the EU Transition Pathway for Tourism and leveraging corporate support, we commit to: 

1) publish an annual barometer on the state of climate action in the business travel industry, capturing progress made by the industry and identifying remaining gaps to be closed; 

2) update and develop new educational and practical tools for business travel professionals annually, such as the GBTA Sustainability Toolkit, to promote the integration of sustainable business travel practices and; 

3) release new global and industry-wide sustainable procurement criteria for accommodation, as well as air travel, ground transport and rail by the end of 2024 to send a strong, consistent and meaningful market signal for sustainable business travel, and gradually shift the $1.357 trillion spent on business travel globally towards suppliers committed to sustainability.