The 2023 Travel Smart Ranking measures efforts made by global companies towards reducing corporate air travel emissions, tracking their commitment, emissions and reporting performance. It shows that 85% of global companies don’t have credible plans to reduce corporate flying emissions.
A small group of well-known companies have a bigger share of emissions than the rest of the companies in the ranking. The ten biggest flyers without a target, i.e. Volkswagen, KPMG International, Johnson & Johnson, Accenture, Siemens, IBM, Microsoft, Alphabet (parent company of Google), Merck & Co. and SAP, collectively accounted for 3.5 MtCO2 of air travel emissions in 2019, or 20% of emissions from companies in our ranking.
Thirteen of top 25 flyers have no plan to reduce Scope 3 emissions whatsoever, while the twelve others only have broad targets including business travel without detailing specific goals to reduce it. And yet major emitting companies have a bigger share of the responsibility, and the resources, to set ambitious travel emissions reduction targets and policies.
Action by these big emitters can truly drive change. If 10% of companies – the biggest emitters of the ranking – set 50% reduction targets, this would go half the way towards achieving the global target of -50% in corporate air travel emissions by 2025. After a year of inaction, there’s no time to lose.
For further information on the top emitters by country:
United States – United Kingdom – France – Germany – Switzerland – Ireland – Netherlands – Spain
