New: STL for Business Travel
For years, Sustainable Travel Leave (STL) has helped organisations align their values with how their staff travel in their leisure time - making it easier to choose lower-carbon options for their holidays without personal or professional penalty.
Today, we’re excited to announce the launch of a new business travel version of Sustainable Travel Leave.
Why Business Travel Needed A Rethink
Business travel is one of the hardest areas for organisations to decarbonise, and business flights are one of the largest and fastest growing contributors to companies’ emissions.
Flights are often treated as unavoidable, time-saving is prioritised above all else, and employees can feel pressured to choose the fastest or cheapest option rather than the most sustainable one.
The result?
Even organisations with strong climate commitments find their business travel emissions stubbornly high - and their staff stuck between company values and company expectations.
Why STL For Business Travel Works
The business travel version of Sustainable Travel Leave removes that tension.
It gives employees a modest amount of paid time to choose lower-carbon travel options - such as trains instead of short-haul flights - when travelling for work.
Organisations formally recognise that lower-carbon travel can take longer - and that this time is legitimate, valuable, and supported.
As a result, colleagues are able to do more and better quality work on their journey, whilst travelling in a way that aligns with their values and helps the company to drastically reduce carbon emissions.
Good For People, Good For Climate, Good For Business
This approach delivers benefits on multiple fronts:
Drastically lower emissions from business travel - often over 90% lower
Healthier, less stressful journeys for employees
More productive journeys for employees who are better able to work on trains and ferries, where there is wifi, plug sockets, more space and fewer disruptions than compared to flying
Stronger credibility for climate commitments made visible with official Sustainable Travel Employer accreditation
Crucially, Sustainable Travel Leave doesn’t ban flying or introduce rigid rules. It simply levels the playing field, so sustainable choices - which increase productivity - are genuinely viable.
From Principle To Practice
Many organisations already talk about reducing business travel emissions. Sustainable Travel Leave helps make that ambition operational - embedding climate responsibility into everyday decision-making, rather than relying on individual sacrifice.
It’s a practical policy change that sends a powerful signal:
how we travel for work matters - and we’re willing to back that up with time, trust, and support.
Employers who do this reap the benefits from increased productivity and improved staff wellbeing.
What’s Next
The launch of Sustainable Travel Leave for business travel is an invitation to rethink what “normal” looks like when it comes to incentivising and enabling low-carbon work travel - and to design policies that reflect the realities of a climate-constrained world.
Because sustainable travel shouldn’t be the harder choice - and doing the right thing can substantially benefit profit-driven businesses too.