UK businesses are being asked to reduce the carbon footprint of staff travel while the information they need to do so arrives after the room has been booked, new research suggests.
Only one in four (24 per cent) UK business decision makers can easily compare carbon data before booking staff accommodation, according to staff travel management platform Roomex. An additional 33 percent can only see information on some of the available options, while 38 percent find it after booking or not at all.
The findings, published in Roomex’s The Accommodation Visibility Gap report, point to an absurd state of affairs: many firms correctly measure accommodation emissions after employees leave, yet they do not have the information to reduce them yet to make a difference.
For trades, construction firms, engineers and field service businesses that keep mobile teams on the road, this is not a concern. Employee accommodation is important or critical to 71 percent of organizations, enabling employees to access locations, projects and customers.
Carbon rarely tops the checklist
The research is refreshingly honest about where carbon sits in the pecking order. Cost, location, availability or project urgency take precedence over carbon impact for 85 percent of organizations at least sometimes.
Almost two-thirds (63 percent) say bookers need approval, or cannot choose a low-carbon option, if it is too expensive, from the workplace or both.
That will be true for owner-managers who are already riding tight margins. But the pressure to track carbon emissions from travel is relentless. As tougher sustainability reporting rules loom, large customers are increasingly pushing carbon disclosure requirements down their supply chains, and smaller firms unable to produce reliable numbers are at risk of losing contracts.
Keith Watson, president at Roomex, said: “Businesses are being asked to reduce the carbon footprint of their workforce without always having the knowledge needed to do it.
“Businesses need clear, comparable carbon information when measuring cost, space and availability. That allows them to choose the lowest carbon option where it works.”
Measured in the back, cut in the front
The report calls on businesses to link property search, booking, approval and reporting data, so that carbon is considered before a room is booked rather than collected afterwards.
The problem echoes a broader pattern. Research has repeatedly shown that the majority of UK SMEs are unable to decarbonise their business, and the travel sector has only recently started to produce more accurate travel carbon figures allowing firms to compare options with confidence.
Hotel stays count as Scope 3 emissions under greenhouse gas calculations, and the government publishes official conversion factors for company reporting that include the price per room per night. But averages after the fact are no substitute for comparable numbers when booking.
Roomex helps businesses centralize staff accommodation bookings, improve cost control and bring reporting to one place. Through its partnership with SQUAKE, it also supports occupancy CO2e measurements, allowing organizations to view the carbon impact and practical information used to manage occupancy.
For SME owners, the takeaway is simple enough. No one expects carbon to lower the cost of every job. But if the data only appears when the invoice goes out, the green option was never really on the table.
