Carbon offsets are a great start in prioritizing sustainable business travel, but take your approach further with a sustainable business travel supplier strategy. It’s the most durable lever for truly sustainable business travel.

Many Executives and Travel Managers have embraced the idea of utilizing business travel carbon offsets to reach their sustainability goals. While these are absolutely an important part of the approach, don’t overlook business travel supplier sustainability. As you choose who to partner with, evaluate your current supplier relationships and preferred vendor lists. Consider how you can begin incorporating emissions performance into procurement and supplier preference decisions.

Key Takeaways About Sustainable Supplier Strategy

• Carbon offsets have their place, but they’re not a full solution for sustainability.
• A sustainable business travel supplier strategy shows a greater commitment toward sustainability goals.
• Start by gathering supplier-level emissions data.

What Carbon Offsets Can and Can’t Do

What comes after carbon offsets in a business travel sustainability strategy? Careful business travel ESG supplier selection is the next logical step in reaching your sustainability goals. Sustainability-focused supplier selection gives stakeholders verifiable evidence of emissions reduction, not just offset credits.

Carbon offsets accomplish a lot. If you’ve been utilizing carbon offsets, you know that they give you a practical, immediate way to respond to sustainability pressure. 

However, ESG reporting requirements are tighter than ever. Stakeholders—including boards, investors, regulators and employees—demand more transparency and ask more questions. They want specific answers. Offset-based programs are increasingly seen as insufficient on their own. 

As a result, procurement is driving the next phase of business travel sustainability. It’s all about asking which airlines your company prefers, which hotels are on the approved list, which ground transportation options appear in the booking tool, etc. 

Today, supplier choice is where sustainability strategy becomes measurable, defensible and durable. 

Why You Should Build a Sustainable Business Travel Supplier Strategy Now

It’s not just hearsay that the sustainability conversation in business travel is shifting toward procurement. 

According to the Center for Sustainability and Excellence, “In 2026, sustainability teams will spend more time with procurement, logistics and suppliers. Why? Because customers and investors keep pushing for comparable value chain data, not just corporate headlines. A big signal is how fast supplier disclosure is scaling. CDP says around 45,000 suppliers were requested to disclose through its Supply Chain program in 2025, with a focus on standardized, comparable supplier data including Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions. What this means for U.S. companies: You will not ‘collect data once a year’ and call it done. Instead, you will run supplier engagement like a business process.”

So, yes, there’s every reason to prioritize sustainable procurement now. ESG disclosure frameworks are increasingly requiring companies to show not just what they offset, but what they are doing to reduce emissions at the source. At the same time, airlines, hotels and ground transport providers are producing more verified emissions data than ever before. This means companies can now base procurement decisions on actual performance rather than estimates.

In short, you have the developments on the supply side that make data attainable, as well as the demand for disclosure. Both the supply-side data and stakeholder demand are in place—making this the right moment to act.

The Benefits of Sustainability-Informed Supplier Selection

When you choose preferred suppliers in part based on verified emissions performance, every booking in the managed program contributes to your sustainability goal—not just the ones that generate offset purchases. Your sustainability data becomes consistent, auditable and part of normal program operations rather than managed as a separate initiative. 

Not only does this mean that you end up with greater overall adherence to your sustainability goals, but you also enjoy greater efficiency on your end as the Executive or Travel Manager. Plus, you get all the additional credibility and brand value that comes with increased supply chain transparency, which can result in a competitive advantage. 

As you build this strategy, reward Travelers for compliance and strengthen supplier relationships. Make the Traveler experience as easy as possible by building sustainable options directly into your booking tool, so that booking sustainably is seamless and second nature. You might also increase supplier engagement if they show further improvement over time.

What You’ll Need for a Sustainable Business Travel Supplier Strategy

As a Travel Manager or Executive, there are a few things you’ll need to best equip you for sustainability-informed procurement:

• Access to supplier-level emissions data

• A framework for weighting sustainability criteria against cost and service quality in RFPs

• A booking tool that can surface and prioritize sustainable options without adding friction

This won’t happen overnight. You’ll need to take small steps to change your procurement process. The best starting point for success is establishing clean emissions data.

PlanetForward can help here, as a tool that makes supplier-level sustainability data visible and actionable within your travel program.

Next Steps 

Wondering what to do next?

1. Review current preferred supplier agreements to understand whether emissions performance is part of the evaluation criteria.

2. Identify which airlines, hotel chains and ground providers publish verified sustainability data and what benchmarks they are hitting.

3. Work with a TMC to incorporate sustainability weighting into your next supplier RFP cycle.

4. Configure your booking tool to surface lower-emission options as preferred where they are available. 

Again, this is something that can’t happen overnight, but you’ll see the benefits of your small steps compounding over time. Each procurement cycle that includes sustainability criteria builds a more defensible and measurable program.

How Carbon Offsets Fit into a Sustainable Supplier Strategy

Offsets will remain part of the sustainability toolkit. They serve a purpose, particularly for emissions that companies cannot yet reduce at the source. But they are most credible when they sit on top of a procurement strategy that is already driving emissions down. 

The companies that get there first will not just have better sustainability numbers. They will have supplier relationships, program data and reporting infrastructure that holds up when scrutiny increases. That work starts in the preferred vendor list, not the offset account.

Learn more about business travel sustainability and how JTB can help you reach your sustainability goals.

Northstar Travel Group is a JTB Corp company. JTB Business Travel may reference reporting or research published by Northstar; however, all commentary and recommendations in this article are independently developed.