Australian firms prioritise greener business travel

Uber for Business has published research suggesting Australian businesses place greater emphasis on sustainable ground travel than their peers in the UK, France and Germany. The findings are based on a YouGov survey of senior decision-makers across several markets.

The study found 86% of Australian respondents said sustainable ground travel was important, compared with 76% in France, 66% in the UK and 58% in Germany. It also found 82% of Australian respondents would pay more for lower-emission travel options, versus 68% in France, 53% in Germany and 50% in the UK.

The figures suggest a stronger stated preference for lower-emission travel among Australian companies than in the European markets highlighted in the survey. Uber for Business linked this to Australia's climate-reporting framework, which is being phased in for large entities and will include Scope 3 emissions such as business travel.

Under the reporting regime cited in the research, large entities will need to measure and disclose emissions associated with business travel as part of broader Scope 3 reporting. Other organisations are expected to come into scope later, increasing pressure on travel, finance and procurement teams to track emissions more closely.

Jenny Huynh, Country Manager ANZ at Uber for Business, said the regulatory shift was changing how companies approached corporate travel. "As mandatory climate reporting starts to capture emissions from areas like business travel, sustainability becomes something travel teams are mandated to measure and manage. Building sustainability into ground travel programs from the outset, rather than running it as a separate reporting exercise, is key for Australian businesses," Huynh said.

The research suggests sustainability is one of several demands shaping business travel decisions, rather than a standalone concern. In Australia, respondents ranked safety as the most important factor when selecting ground transport for business travel, with 98% saying it was important or very important.

Convenience followed at 96%, while cost was cited by 88% and speed by 87%. The results indicate travel managers are balancing environmental targets with practical concerns such as employee welfare, budgets and efficiency.

Competing demands

Huynh said travel teams were being asked to manage several priorities at once, often through fragmented systems. "Australian travel managers are being asked to deliver on a range of complex, and often competing, challenges all at once - and from our experience we know that too often they're doing it with a different process or tool for every focus area," she said.

She said companies often relied on separate tools for expenses, travel policy, bookings, sustainability reporting and duty of care. "Often businesses are using one platform for expenses, one for travel policies, another for bookings, one for sustainability reporting, and another for duty of care. The fragmentation makes the balancing act difficult. But the solution is recognising these challenges are all happening in tandem and unifying management into one place," Huynh said.

The survey also pointed to changing expectations among employees. Almost half of Australian organisations, or 48%, said they expected demand for greater flexibility from workers to rise over the next three to five years.

That reflects wider changes in working patterns as hybrid arrangements become more established and younger employees account for a larger share of the workforce. For travel managers, it can mean arranging transport that fits less predictable schedules and a broader range of traveller preferences.

Digital uptake

Australian organisations reported the highest adoption of digital tools for managing ground travel among the markets studied, according to Uber for Business. The survey found strong use of corporate booking platforms in Australia, alongside rideshare app uptake by 59% of respondents and mobile expense tools by 40%.

Uber for Business argued that wider use of digital systems could help businesses respond to competing travel demands. The findings suggest Australian companies may be relatively advanced in putting in place the operational tools needed to oversee cost, traveller safety and emissions through a single process.

Huynh said the broader challenge for travel teams was managing disruption without treating each issue in isolation. "The old way of tackling these challenges one at a time with a different platform or tool for each thing no longer works when disruption is constant," she said.

She added: "Issues like ensuring reliability, cost, sustainability and flexibility are all pulling in different directions at once, and travel teams can't afford to treat them as trade-offs."

The YouGov research covered senior decision-makers in finance, human resources, procurement and travel roles at private-sector organisations with 250 or more employees in Australia. The Australian sample included 250 respondents.

In a final assessment of how companies are adjusting their travel programs, Huynh said: "What we're seeing is a shift towards programs that are resilient by design, where visibility, duty of care and sustainability are factored in from the start, with the space to bend where needed. This is the thinking that has gone into building the Uber for Business platform, which is designed to help travel teams manage all of these priorities in one place."