BRUSSELS, BELGIUM—The Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) welcomes the final approval of the CountEmissionsEU Regulation by the European Parliament. This new law establishes a consistent and accurate methodology for calculating emissions from transport services, including air and ground transport. This initiative is critical for business travelers, as it will help them make more sustainable choices by enabling them to compare the carbon footprint of their trips across providers and modes of transport.
The necessity for a standardized, international approach to calculating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from travel, is underscored by findings from GBTA’s Sustainability Acceleration Challenge, which reveals that 70 percent of companies are tracking carbon emissions from their employee travel programs*. The data also shows that 60 percent of companies have sustainability features in their corporate booking platforms, including displaying emissions for each business trip. While progress has been made, many organizations still rely on multiple, often inconsistent methods to collect and calculate emissions data.
This fragmentation increases complexity and makes it difficult to form a clear, comparable picture of business travel emissions. By establishing a single harmonized methodology, CountEmissionsEU will help put organizations on an even footing, ensuring emissions are measured consistently across the industry and enabling meaningful comparison, transparency, and accountability.
A Free, Public Calculation Tool
GBTA welcomes the fact that the Regulation does not create additional reporting obligations and that the Commission has committed to providing a free, public calculation tool for small and medium-size businesses, to ease implementation. This will prove very helpful for smaller companies that may struggle to calculate their travel emissions.
In addition, as business travel is a global sector in nature, GBTA calls for the EU to work with its global partners to achieve a global standard for transport emissions accounting. Global harmonization would make it easier for business travelers to track and compare emissions from different travel options across the world. This would also prevent regional fragmentation that would be harmful for businesses.
“GBTA welcomes the adoption of the CountEmissionsEU Regulation, which will enhance the business travel sector’s ability to move towards greener practices,” GBTA says. “We are hopeful that the Regulation will serve as a first step towards a global methodology for transport emissions accounting.”
As an industry, business travel has been at the forefront of driving sustainable mobility, a topic which will be center stage at the forthcoming Sustainability Summit in Vienna later this year.
*Based on the results of the 2025 global benchmark.
