Business travel is one of the easiest parts of a company’s footprint to measure, because every trip is already booked and paid for. Offsetting it means turning that booking data into tonnes of CO₂e, cutting what you can, and retiring credits for the rest. This page is part of our guide to offsetting.
What counts as business travel?
The GHG Protocol’s Scope 3 Standard puts business travel in category 6. It covers employees travelling for work in vehicles owned or operated by someone else, such as aircraft, trains, buses and passenger cars, including rental cars and employees’ own cars used for business tripsSource 1. Companies may optionally include hotel staysSource 1.
Commuting to and from work is a separate category, and travel in vehicles the company owns or controls is counted in scope 1 or 2Source 1. Our page on scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions explains the difference.
Matched shop
Buy portfolio credits
- Registry serial numbers
- Retirement certificate
- Project documentation
How to measure it
Most of the data you need is in your travel agency reports, booking tool or expense system: origin and destination, cabin class, rail and car-hire distances, and hotel nights by country. Multiply each by an emission factor and add them up. The UK government publishes a free set of factors for company reporting that covers all of theseSource 2.
Scrolls sideways to show every column.
| Travel | Factor | Unit |
|---|---|---|
| Long-haul flight, economy (with non-CO₂ effects) | 0.11704 | kg CO₂e per passenger-km |
| Long-haul flight, premium economy (with non-CO₂ effects) | 0.18726 | kg CO₂e per passenger-km |
| Long-haul flight, business (with non-CO₂ effects) | 0.33940 | kg CO₂e per passenger-km |
| Long-haul flight, first (with non-CO₂ effects) | 0.46814 | kg CO₂e per passenger-km |
| Domestic flight, average passenger (with non-CO₂ effects) | 0.22928 | kg CO₂e per passenger-km |
| National rail (UK) | 0.03092 | kg CO₂e per passenger-km |
| Average car, fuel unknown | 0.16591 | kg CO₂e per vehicle-km |
| Hotel stay, UK | 10.40000 | kg CO₂e per room per night |
| Hotel stay, United States | 16.10000 | kg CO₂e per room per night |
As of Oct 2026 · Source: [2] DESNZ greenhouse gas conversion factors 2026
The flight factors already include an allowance for indirect routes, so apply them to the straight-line distance between airportsSource 3. Hotel factors vary widely by country, so use the one for the country you stayed in.
Flights and cabin class
Flights are usually where most of the tonnes are. A return economy flight from London Heathrow to New York JFK comes to about 1.30 t CO₂e per passenger, including non-CO₂ effects. Cabin class then multiplies it: DESNZ’s long-haul business-class factor is about 2.9 times the economy factor, and first class about 4 timesSource 2, because premium seats take up more of the aircraft.
That makes a cabin-class policy one of the most effective levers a company has. Our flight emissions calculator shows the figure for any route and cabin, and our guide to offsetting a flight explains non-CO₂ effects.
Cut what you can first
Reductions come before credits. The SBTi says credits must not be counted as reductions towards a company’s science-based targetsSource 5, so a travel policy does more for your reported footprint than any purchase. Common measures:
- Rail instead of short flights. Our World in Data estimates that taking the train instead of a domestic flight cuts that journey’s emissions by around 86%Source 4. On the UK factors, the domestic flight factor is about seven times the national rail factor per passenger-kilometreSource 2.
- Economy by default, with premium cabins only by exception.
- Fewer, longer trips, combining meetings in one journey.
- Online meetings for internal and routine meetings.
How to offset business travel, step by step
Step 1: Collect the trip data
Export flights, rail, car hire and hotel nights for the year from your travel agency, booking tool or expense system.
Step 2: Convert to tonnes of CO₂e
Apply emission factors by mode, distance, cabin class and hotel country, and add up the results.
Step 3: Cut what you can
Replace short flights with rail, fly economy, hold some meetings online and combine trips.
Step 4: Work out how many credits you need
One credit covers one tonne of CO₂e, so round the total up to whole credits.
Step 5: Buy from a seller you can check
Choose a seller that names the project, standard and registry, and get the retirement records for your files.
Step 6: Report it separately
Report the credits alongside your inventory, not as a reduction in it.
One credit represents one tonne of CO₂eSource 7. Our credits calculator rounds the total up and shows an estimated cost. For larger volumes, our guide to buying carbon credits for a company covers procurement, contracts and due diligence, and the small business guide covers smaller purchases.
How to report it
Claims: what an offset can and can't say
Keep the tonnes of business travel in your scope 3 inventory, and report the credits you retired separately. VCMI’s Claims Code asks companies to set emission reduction targets first and then buy high-quality credits from outside their value chainSource 6. A statement such as “we retired 120 tonnes of verified credits against our 2026 business travel emissions”, with links to the registry records, is clearer than saying travel was “carbon neutral”.
If your company also runs events or ships products, see our guides to offsetting a wedding or event and offsetting e-commerce shipping.