Deloitte just released the results of its Forecast in Flux: 2025 Deloitte Corporate Travel Study. The report draws on two surveys fielded in July 2025. The 2025 Deloitte Corporate Travel Manager Survey reached more than 150 travel managers, while the 2025 Deloitte Corporate Traveler Survey reached more than 1,000 professionals who took a business trip in 2024 and 2025. Both surveys were U.S.-based. A portion of the study addressed sustainable travel.
According to Deloitte, many organizations are taking a closer look at how they manage corporate travel, identifying opportunities to streamline operations and reduce unnecessary impact. Nearly half (48 percent) of travel managers surveyed say their companies are optimizing business travel practices to mitigate environmental impact, similar to 2024.
More also conclude that their organizations’ emissions targets call for a significant reduction in travel. Those who say they need to reduce travel by 20 percent or more nearly doubled to 45 percent in 2025, compared to 24 percent in 2024. Bigger companies may be pursuing bigger reductions, as 55 percent of those with travel spend over $7.5 million say they need to reduce trip volume by 20 percent or more (versus 41 percent of smaller companies).
Sustainable Aviation Fuels
While some travel buyers may look to reduce trips, many also continue to seek ways to reduce the trips’ impact. The share of travel buyers reporting that their companies prioritize airlines that use sustainable aviation fuels (SAFs) jumped to 43 percent in 2025, up from 33 percent in 2024.
Respondents also report that their approach to various supplier strategies to impact reduction—including the use of SAFs—has shifted more toward action than observation. Across all supplier approaches measured, companies appear to be moving from collecting data to flagging greener options in booking engines or mandating travelers to consider them when possible. Fewer travel buyers are tracking sustainability metrics, but more report that information on SAFs, emissions, and certifications is being flagged in booking tools.
Two years ago, in the Navigating Toward a New Normal: 2023 Deloitte Corporate Travel Study, a time when the economy was still recovering from COVID-19, four in 10 European companies and a third of U.S. companies said they needed to reduce travel per employee by more than 20 percent to meet their 2030 sustainability targets.
Carbon-Emission Budgets
In the 2023 study, forty-three percent of respondents (42 percent in the United States and 45 percent in Europe) said they are in the process of implementing a structure to assign carbon-emission budgets to teams alongside financial budgets. Complications abound for consistent emissions tracking and for mandating such budgets, Deloitte said.
The findings by Deloitte in its recent studies hammer home the importance of aligning your business with those companies that are making environmental considerations part of their travel planning. Being prepared to impressively tell your sustainability story and offer data to clients regarding the environmental impact of their stay will go a long way in enhancing the competitiveness of your business. Making sure your environmental efforts are highlighted in all relevant booking engines will further enhance your ability to capture the business of like-minded companies. Establishing solid relationships with eco-minded companies local to you can result in opportunities for more locally based meetings at your property.
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