BT4Europe, the new European network of business travel associations, has called for “standardised, accurate and comparable” data on carbon emissions from travel to enable the sector to make progress in reducing its environmental footprint.
The group of 13 business travel associations, which was formed in February to raise the concerns of the sector across Europe, has produced its first "position paper" on sustainability, including a series of recommendations to the EU.
Patrick Diemer, chair of BT4Europe, said the group had identified a “set of common data challenges”, which if they were not addressed would “prejudice the green transformation of the sector”.
“To green our industry, we must plug the data gaps and end the data inconsistencies. For example, it is difficult to evaluate the real CO2 footprint for different travel options,” added Diemer.
BT4Europe said it was “convinced it must reduce its carbon footprint in line with the European Green Deal”, which seeks to reach “climate neutrality” in Europe by 2050.
Angela Lille, chair of BT4Europe’s working group on sustainability, added: “Business, citizens and the European Union must work together to ensure the CO2 footprint of business travel options become as important as price; customers have a right to CO2 information and we agree a unified standard for CO2 emission calculations.
“We need to change travel behaviour and break old patterns. Accurate and comparable data is urgently needed. There is still a proportion of business travel trips that are all about the final financial value - imagine that CO2 is the currency of the future.”
Lille said that emissions data needed to be part of the decision-making process at the point of sale so it became “crucial to the way of comparison of travel services”.
“If I want to take a business trip from Brussels to Frankfurt, I want to see air and rail on the same page side-by-side but that’s hard to find,” added Lille.
She called for a “comprehensive” integration of rail fares, including cross-border ticketing, into online booking tools and other business travel booking platforms.
Lille emphasised that it was currently difficult for corporates to accurately access their emissions from travel due to the high number of different methodologies used to calculate them.
“For the same flight, there are seven methodologies that estimate CO2 emissions differently – how can I calculate the footprint if suppliers provide different methodologies?” she asked. “Without transparency we will never know if we’re developing in the right direction.
“We need uniformity – a European or global standard is needed for business travel.”
BT4Europe is urging the EU to provide funding to help the travel industry “realise the necessary investments” to create a standardised digital way of providing carbon emissions data.
The group is recommending that this process should start through a “concise standard” on emissions reporting for air and rail traffic, alongside a uniform standard for CO2 values according to the GHG (Greenhouse Gas) Protocol covering Scope 3 emissions in Europe.
BT4Europe also wants to see the EU introduce rules obliging all travel suppliers to provide digital CO2 emissions data reports at “no cost” to corporate clients.
The report on sustainability is BT4Europe’s first major paper since its formation. Further position papers on the subjects of digital transformation, facts and figures on business travel in the EU, and the restart of corporate travel post-pandemic are expected to be published in the “very near future”.