By Jonás Ramírez, Marketing & Communications Lead
The UN Climate Change Conference, COP31, will take place in Antalya, Turkey, from November 9 to 20, 2026, and its presidency has described it as an “Implementation COP,” focused on translating existing commitments into tangible and trackable progress.
That direction is important for corporate travel. Sustainability policies are now common across large organizations, but having a policy is different from reducing the emissions associated with business travel. Travel Managers increasingly need to understand what can realistically be reduced, how the remaining footprint is measured, and what their suppliers are doing about it. Transportation is one area where those questions have very practical answers.
Road transport emissions remain difficult to reduce
According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), road transport produced just over 6 gigatons of CO₂ in 2024, 8% more than in 2015. Passenger cars and vans accounted for more than 60% of those emissions, and current IEA projections suggest that direct emissions from road transport will remain above 6 gigatons through 2035.
Transport, therefore, sits directly within the implementation agenda for COP31. The summit’s Global Climate Action Agenda includes the clean energy transition among its priorities, with a target to increase electricity’s share of final energy demand from around 20% today to 35% by 2035. The emphasis is increasingly on turning climate commitments into measurable progress.
For corporate travel, ground transportation is only one part of a much larger emissions picture. On many long-haul journeys, aviation will account for considerably more. But road mobility is also one of the areas where Travel Managers have relatively direct choices over vehicle selection, suppliers, and how the resulting emissions are addressed.
Business mobility offers practical choices
Some of the emissions associated with executive ground transportation can be reduced through relatively straightforward choices. Vehicle size is one example: passenger numbers and luggage may justify a larger vehicle, but using one by default when it is not needed adds unnecessary energy consumption. Routing, empty mileage, fleet efficiency, and the availability of hybrid or electric vehicles can also make a difference.
The same applies to service execution. Separate vehicles are sometimes necessary, particularly when passengers have different schedules, but not every itinerary requires them. Where appropriate, consolidating movements or keeping the same vehicle available can reduce unnecessary journeys without compromising the requirements of executive transportation.
Those choices are not equally available in every city. Electric vehicle availability, charging infrastructure, and fleet composition still vary considerably between markets. Reducing emissions therefore requires a realistic view of where viable alternatives already exist and where they do not.
Reduction and compensation have different roles
Carbon compensation attracts justified attention when it is presented as a substitute for reducing emissions. Its role is more credible when it addresses the emissions that remain after reasonable efforts have been made to reduce them.
The measures discussed above can reduce the footprint of ground transportation, but they cannot yet eliminate it. Premium transportation operates across hundreds of cities where fleets, infrastructure, regulations, and vehicle availability differ considerably, making a fully zero-emission service unrealistic across every market today.
The remaining emissions still need to be measured and addressed. This is where compensation can play a role, provided the carbon credits come from credible projects and there is sufficient transparency to verify what has been compensated and how.
Travel Managers, therefore, have good reason to look beyond generic claims that a transportation service is “green.” The more useful questions concern what the provider is doing to reduce emissions, how the remaining footprint is calculated, and what evidence supports any compensation claims.
More than two decades of carbon compensation
Drivania began addressing its carbon footprint long before ESG reporting became a standard corporate requirement. The company has calculated and compensated the emissions generated by its activity since operations began in 2001. In 2023, it completed the compensation of its entire historical footprint and has continued the program annually since then.
Over the years, that compensation has supported renewable energy projects in countries including India, Brazil, Mexico, and Ivory Coast. Following the audit of services performed in 2025, Drivania selected the Larimar Wind Farm Project in the Dominican Republic for its 2026 compensation program. The project is certified under the Verified Carbon Standard and is estimated to reduce approximately 246,766 metric tons of CO₂ equivalent each year.
Certification has not been identical across every project. Previous initiatives supported by Drivania have included Gold Standard-certified projects, while Larimar is certified under the Verified Carbon Standard. From a procurement perspective, the relevant point is not the use of a particular label but whether the project, methodology, carbon credits, and verification behind a compensation claim can be identified and documented.
Sustainability claims need evidence
Sustainability information increasingly needs to extend beyond the travel department. Procurement teams, sustainability managers, auditors, and clients may all need to understand how the emissions associated with a mobility supplier are calculated and addressed.
Drivania’s Service Overview places ground transportation within corporate Scope 3 reporting, including GHG Protocol Category 6 for Business Travel. Supporting documentation on the projects used for carbon compensation can also be provided for sustainability reporting, supplier disclosures, and ESG audits.
That focus on evidence fits particularly well with COP31’s emphasis on implementation. The conference’s Global Implementation Accelerator is intended to help turn climate commitments into solutions that can be implemented and scaled. Corporate mobility operates on a very different scale, but the underlying expectation is similar: commitments need to be supported by actions that can be examined.
Road transport still has a considerable distance to cover before its emissions are aligned with global climate goals. Corporate ground transportation will not solve that problem on its own, and carbon compensation should not be presented as though it can.
Progress is more credible when suppliers can show what they are doing about the emissions associated with their services, and that evidence is ultimately more useful than another sustainability promise.