Overview

With offices in London and San Francisco, this client focuses on sustainable investment strategies that align financial performance with positive global impact.

Their key objectives were:

• Achieve a 20% reduction in Scope 3 business travel emissions by spring 2026 by promoting sustainable travel behaviours among employees and stakeholders
• Optimise airline selection at the point of sale by prioritising carriers that actively use Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAF), leveraging SAF scoring to encourage environmentally conscious booking behaviours and reduce Scope 3 business travel emissions.
• Support the client’s corporate sustainability goals by delivering comprehensive carbon reporting aligned with DEFRA guidelines, enabling stakeholders to track emissions, measure progress towards reduction targets, and effectively communicate sustainability credentials to external clients and partners.

Challenges

The challenges included:

• The client had no visibility or solution in place to track or manage their Scope 3 business travel emissions, making it difficult to set, monitor, or measure progress. Without access to emissions data, employees lacked awareness of the environmental impact of their travel choices and were unable to make informed decisions.
• The absence of booking tool capabilities – such as the ability to compare travel modes (e.g. air vs rail), set carbon budgets, or view Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) scores – meant that sustainable alternatives were often overlooked, limiting the organisation’s ability to influence behaviour and reduce Scope 3 business travel emissions.

Solutions

Refined travel policy: We collaborated closely with the client to assess and refine travel policies, focusing on encouraging sustainable travel practices. The revised policy includes specific guidelines on the class of travel (Economy, Premium, Business), with a strong emphasis on lower class cabins and SAF AA carriers.

Empowering employees: To address the challenge of encouraging travellers to make sustainable choices, CTM’s Online Booking Tool (OBT), Lightning, was implemented. Lightning seamlessly integrates sustainability metrics into the booking process, giving travellers real-time visibility of carbon emissions with an allocated budget, flight vs. train comparisons, SAF scores, filters for electric or hybrid vehicles, empowering users to make informed and responsible decisions. This approach supports behavioural change without disrupting the traveller’s booking experience.

Data-driven tools: Recognising the need for clear and accurate carbon data, access to the CTM Data Hub was provided. This hub features DEFRA-aligned carbon reporting, enabling emissions to be tracked by individual traveller and department. To further support visibility, at-a-glance summary snapshots were developed, these insights improve internal accountability and enhance external ESG reporting, aligning with corporate sustainability goals and stakeholder expectations.

Real-time access: The client’s Sustainability Team was granted real-time access to the CTM Data Hub, ensuring they could continuously monitor sustainability performance throughout the year. This real-time access supports ongoing analysis, proactive adjustments to travel policies, and identification of high-emission areas.

Results

• Scope 3 emissions from business travel have been reduced by 39% over a six month period,  compared to the same period the previous year.
  
• Following the introduction of the revised travel policy, the client achieved a 50% increase in policy compliance.