The GBTA Foundation, the non-profit arm of the Global Business Travel Association, has unveiled findings from its Sustainability Acceleration Challenge, an industry-first global benchmarking initiative evaluating the current state of business travel programmes and the actions being taken by organisations to decarbonise them.
The findings reveal that organisations have much work to do to accelerate the integration of practices if they are to materially reduce their business travel emissions in line with corporate nett-zero targets to be reached by 2050.
The GBTA Sustainability Acceleration Global Benchmark, developed in collaboration with IT and Management Consultants, Accenture, ranks the current state of climate action on a maturity score of 0-5, with 0 denoting ‘no activity’ and 5 denoting ‘leading practice’ action to mitigate business travel emissions.
As of 2024, the first baseline year for the Challenge, the overall global sustainability maturity score across all industry sectors stands at 1,3 out of 5.
This demonstrates that while some action is being taken and planned, there is an urgent need to turn commitments into real impact.
The Challenge was conducted in September and October, with 241 companies participating, representing an approximate cumulative business travel spend of over US$14 billion (R244,4bn).
The companies completed a maturity assessment that evaluated their organisation’s performance across four categories and 15 action levers related to decarbonising their business travel programmes.
The data provided was on a company-level basis, ensuring the carbon reduction efforts of the entire organisation were assessed.
“While acknowledging serious efforts are under way to manage business travel emissions, our Global Benchmark shows the stark need for significant acceleration in climate action,” said Delphine Millot, Senior VP of Advocacy and Sustainability at GBTA and MD of the GBTA Foundation.
“The continued prosperity of the business travel industry is dependent on embedding sustainability in all we do. This is why we launched this initiative. Through these directional insights, we can better understand how organisations can manage their business travel programmes more sustainably, and take the steps needed to significantly reduce carbon emissions as we work towards nett zero.”
In April 2025, the Climate Change Bill, signed by President Cyril Ramaphosa, will require South African businesses to report on emissions emanating from corporate travel, as reported by Travel News.