ESG Reporting

How to set a travel emissions target for your company

Set credible travel emissions targets with clear baselines, ambition frameworks, mitigation levers and actionable sub-targets for measurable progress.

Josefine Bovbjerg

Oct 24, 2025

ESG Reporting Sustainable Business Travel Travel Emissions

How to set a travel emissions target for your company

Why do we need reduction targets for business travel?

Setting credible emissions targets has gone from nice to have to non-negotiable. Without clear, measurable goals for reduction, even genuine sustainability efforts can come across as vague or unconvincing - or even worse, be considered greenwashing - eroding trust and slowing progress.

We don't travel THAT much - is it necessary to set a target for business travel?

We get it. Travel might seem like a small piece of the puzzle, but it can be a major lever for impact. Business travel makes up around 15–20 % of global travel emissions, while aviation accounts for roughly 2.5 % of global energy-related CO₂ emissions.

The message?
Travel isn’t a fringe emissions source, especially for service-based or globally active companies.

The good news?
Companies are waking up. According to GBTA’s 2023 benchmark, 62 % already track their business travel emissions, and another 14 % plan to within a year.

The but...
Tracking is only step one - the real gap lies in action. According to the 2024 Travel Smart ranking report, 83% of global companies still don’t have credible plans to reduce corporate flying emissions. In short, most businesses know their footprint but haven’t set a plan to shrink it.

That’s where targets come in. A travel emissions target turns awareness into action — a measurable, adaptable roadmap that helps companies cut emissions, stay accountable, and lead by example.

In this blog, we’ll guide you through transforming your travel target into an active management tool - a practical way to measure performance, steer your carbon budget, and chart your course with confidence. It’s not just a metric to monitor, but a strategic foundation your business can rely on.

What’s a travel emissions target? 🤔

Simply put, a travel emissions target is a formal commitment by a company to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions from business travel (flights, train, car, etc.) over a defined period. It involves choosing:

A baseline (your starting point, the “here’s where we are now”)
A target year (by when you’ll hit the goal)
A target type (There are two paths you can take when setting an emission target; Absolute and intensity-based)
An ambition level (e.g. “–30 % by 2030” or “halve emissions by 2030”)
A carbon budget or absolute ceiling, so you know how many tons you’re permitting in the target year(s)
Sub-targets / allocations (by mode, department, per employee) to turn ambition into accountability
Mechanisms to monitor, report, and course-correct.

In short: while tracking shows you where you are, target setting gives you direction. It shifts your travel emissions strategy from reactive to proactive.

Why setting a travel emissions target is essential for future-proofing your business

Setting a target isn’t about perfect predictions — it’s about creating a direction, aligning incentives, and enabling feedback loops.

Travel is a major Scope 3 lever

In many service- and knowledge-based organizations, business travel is one of the biggest “outside your walls” emissions drivers. It’s part of Scope 3, Category 6 (Business Travel) under the GHG Protocol. (ghgprotocol.org)

Stakeholder pressure is rising

Investors, customers, and regulators increasingly expect credible, science-aligned climate strategies — not vague promises.

You gain clarity and agency

A target can work as a north star for how you conduct business and business travel (e.g. to prioritize rail vs flights, reduce meeting travel, and refine your travel policy).

Regulatory pressure

Frameworks like CSRD, SECR, and others increasingly require Scope 3 reporting.

It signals strong ESG leadership

Showing you have a real emissions goal helps you stand out in ESG-conscious markets.

How to set a target

We've based this quick-guide on the guidance from the GHG Protocol and Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi).

1. Define your boundary and scope: what exactly “counts” as travel emissions

Before you set a target, you’ve got to be crystal clear on what’s in scope.

Core scope: Scope 3, Category 6 (Business Travel).
This includes emissions from employee travel via third-party modes (flights, trains, buses, rental cars, taxis) for work purposes, excluding commuting.

Optional additions (but common in practice):

Hotel stays and accommodation (life-cycle or operational emissions)
Radiative forcing uplift for flights (some companies apply a multiplier to account for non-CO₂ climate impacts of aviation)
Business-related car travel in employee-owned vehicles or reimbursed mileage
Travel to/from airports (e.g. lumped into local transport)

Clearly defining your scope ensures your travel emissions reporting aligns with recognized standards like the GHG Protocol and the Science Based Targets initiative. Once you know what’s in (and what’s out), you’re ready to set a target that’s both credible and science-aligned.

2. Build your baseline

If you think of travel emission reduction as a marathon, the target is your finish line - and your baseline is your starting line. You’ll use it to track progress and pace, and to make sure your results are repeatable.

Choose a base year
Pick a recent year, that's representative (not an outlier), and for which you have decent travel data. Ideally, you have at least two years of travel history to identify trends (growth, decline) and smooth anomalous years.
Gather activity data

Depending on your maturity, you may use one or more of the following approaches:
- Distance-based method: you record distances traveled per trip (e.g. flight kilometers, train km), assign mode-specific emission factors. This is the preferred method when you have trip-level data.
- Fuel-based method: less common for travel, unless you have fuel consumption data from suppliers/transporters.
- Spend-based method: based on cost of travel and allocation of average emission intensities. Useful when you don’t have distances but have travel spend data.
Decide on framework and emission factors
Once you’ve captured your data, calculate CO2 emissions for each travel activity. Use standardized emission factors aligned with globally recognized protocols, such as those from DEFRA or the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), and follow globally recognized framework for measuring, managing, and reporting greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, such as the Greenhouse Gas Protocol.

For example:
- Short-haul economy flight emits approx. 156g of CO₂ per km
- Hotel stays generate an average footprint of 32kg CO₂ per night
To simplify calculations, Tools like the Goodwings Sustainability Suite can automatically generate emission figures for your travel activities. You can learn more about the different methodologies used to calculate emissions from travel in our blog article "Understanding Travel Emissions Methodologies".

3. Choose your target - and ambition

How much do you commit to cut, and by when? This is where you decide what kind of target you want to set, and when you plan to achieve it:

"We will cut travel emissions by X% by year Y."

Decide on target type
Before you can set targets, you need to decide which type of target you are setting. There are two paths you can take when setting an emission target; Absolute and intensity-based.

Absolute: An absolute emissions reduction target focuses on reducing the total quantity of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) emitted by a company or entity. As a simple example, If our company emits 1,000 metric tons (MT) of CO2-e in 2035 and our goal is to reduce absolute emissions by 10% in 2026, we need to reduce our annual emissions by 100 MT year-over-year from 1,000 to 900 MT of CO2-e.

Intensity: An intensity-based emissions target compares your organization's emissions to some unit of economic output. Examples could be revenue-based (i.e., MT of CO2 per million dollars in sales), per capita or per employee, per building or facility, per unit or finished product, or another material operational indicator.
Set clear reduction targets and select a timeframe

Establish a specific, measurable reduction goal alongside a timeline for achieving it. For example: Commit to reducing travel emissions by 8% each year to stay on track for net-zero.

Time period
When your environmental objectives are closely aligned with financial planning, you may want to use your fiscal year as the timeframe. Alternatively, if your operations are influenced by seasonal trends or if it simplifies external reporting and benchmarking, opt for the calendar year. Budgeting by calendar year can make year-over-year comparisons easier and often aligns with standard environmental reporting frameworks.

Tip: Assign department-level or team-specific budgets to drive accountability and empower every part of your organization to contribute to your overall reduction goals.

Explore how Goodwings can help you set - and meet - reduction targets here.

How to set emission reduction targets for employee travel on the Goodwings platform

Setting a travel emissions target is one thing - keeping it measurable, visible, and actionable is another. That’s where the Goodwings sustainability suite comes in. The platform lets you create, monitor, and reach your reduction goals with data-driven insights and built-in behavioral tools that make every booking count.

1. Start with your CO₂ budget

Your first step is defining how much CO₂ your company can “spend” on travel. In the platform, you can set a company-wide carbon budget and even allocate sub-budgets to teams or individuals. Excess alerts notify you when emissions are close to exceeding your target, keeping everyone accountable in real time.

2. Choose your target type

Goodwings supports two target types, depending on how your business measures progress:

Absolute target – Focuses on cutting total emissions. For example: if your 2024 footprint is 1,000 t CO₂e and you want a 10 % reduction in 2025, your annual cap becomes 900 t CO₂e.
Intensity-based target (recommended) – Tracks emissions relative to a key indicator, such as revenue or number of employees (e.g., t CO₂e per FTE or per million € revenue). This allows you to measure efficiency improvements as the company grows.

3. Build policies that support your goal

Once your target is set, Goodwings helps you design smart travel policies that make reductions achievable:

Set maximum CO₂ per passenger km thresholds
Limit highest cabin class or maximum flight distance
Encourage rail over air for short routes
Use policy alerts to flag high-carbon bookings before they’re confirmed.

These policies connect directly to your carbon budget, ensuring daily travel decisions align with your long-term goals.

4. Track and forecast progress

Get emission data and insights directly in your dashboard:Your CO₂ dashboard delivers real-time visibility into your company’s emissions, broken down by route, department, or traveler.

AI powered forecasting to help you plan ahead:With our unique CO₂ forecasting tool, you’ll receive actionable recommendations for limiting and reducing emissions, along with predictive graphs that show the impact of your travel policies and projected future emissions. Leveraging predictive analytics, you can model future outcomes based on booking behaviors, revealing how measures like shifting to rail or adjusting travel budgets directly influence your progress toward reduction targets.

5. Empower your team

In the My Climate dashboard, every traveler can see how their trips contribute to company goals and monitor their own footprint. AI nudges and low-emission booking suggestions promote better travel habits without adding extra admin.

6. Report with confidence

When it’s time to report progress, you can export ESG-ready CO₂ reports directly from the platform. Reports are filterable by date, entity, or traveler, and align with global frameworks like DEFRA, EPA, and ICAO.

Start your travel emission reduction journey with us today. Book a chat with Goodwings to see how we can help you set targets for your business travel.

Real-world examples of reduction targets

It's a great idea to do a "sanity check" before launching your target. Look at what peer organizations are pledging to ensure your target is ambitious but realistic, allowing operational flexibility for growth. Here are a few examples of SBTI validated targets.

Company	Target (Business Travel)	How they set/committed	Company size and industry	SBTi validated?
McKinsey & Company	Reduce per-employee business travel emissions by 35% by 2025, 55% by 2030 and 97% by 2050 vs 2019 baseline. Intensity based target	Integrated travel target within their firmwide 1.5°C-aligned climate strategy; published progress reports annually.	~45,100 employees Management consulting	Validated by SBTi (1.5°C pathway)
Boston Consulting Group (BCG)	Reduce business travel emissions per FTE by 48.5% by 2025 (vs 2018 baseline). Intensity based target	Embedded in corporate climate roadmap; progress tracked and reported publicly.	~33,000 employees Management consulting	Validated by SBTi
PwC (Global)	Reduce absolute business travel emissions by 50% by 2030 (vs FY2019). Absolute target	Included travel as part of Scope 3 target in its global net-zero plan.	~370,000+ employees Professional services	Validated by SBTi (net-zero by 2030)
Jacobs Solutions Inc.	Reduce business travel and employee commuting emissions by 50% by 2030 (vs 2019). Absolute target	Target set under SBTi’s “Absolute Contraction” method; included travel as key Scope 3 category.	~45,000–55,000 employees Engineering & technical services	Validated by SBTi
AECOM	Reduce business travel emissions by 50% by 2030 and 90% by 2040. Absolute target	Defined in their “Travel with Purpose” strategy; part of broader Sustainable Legacies net-zero roadmap.	~51,000 employees Infrastructure consulting / engineering	Validated by SBTi
Akind Venture AB	Reduce absolute Scope 3 GHG emissions (from purchased goods and services, capital goods, and business travel) by 58.8 % by 2034 vs 2022 base year. Also commits to net-zero across value chain by 2045. Absolute target	Business travel explicitly covered in Scope 3 category. Near-term and long-term targets validated under the SBTi Net-Zero Standard.	~600 employees Professional services / HR & staffing solutions	Validated by SBTi (near-term + long-term Net Zero).

Aligning your travel targets with the SBTi

If your company is working toward SBTi verification, your travel emissions targets need to meet the same scientific rigor as the rest of your climate goals. For companies with notable air travel footprints, the SBTi’s Aviation Guidance outlines clear rules:

● If Scope 3 emissions (including business travel) make up 40 % or more of your total footprint, you must set a Scope 3 target.

● That target must cover at least two-thirds of total Scope 3 emissions.

● For aviation and business travel (Scope 3 Category 6), the Absolute Contraction Approach is required — committing to real annual emission cuts of at least 1.23 % over a 5–15-year period.

Through our #MoveTheTravel campaign in partnership with We Don’t Have Time, we unpack what the SBTi is, its tailored roadmap for aviation, and the frameworks empowering businesses to reduce travel-related emissions.

👉 Read our full deep dive into the SBTi’s aviation guidance here

Set emission targets for your business travel easily, with Goodwings

Book a live demo to get a quick intro to the Goodwings platform.

How to set a travel emissions target for your company